


Beyond the world, how deep does the water go

by Caivallon



Series: once upon a time... [3]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Child Abuse, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 06:08:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caivallon/pseuds/Caivallon
Summary: Auston knows he shouldn't. Keep thinking about the boy. Not when he's here, cleaning Auston's cabin, working around the house and working for him. But especially not when he's away, while he's working seven days a week, sixteen hours a day on the platform; covered in oily uniforms and soiled. Dirty. Disturbed.That's what it is— what he's doing.When he's finally lying in his narrow bunk bed at night or at the end of his shift.He's thinking about the boy. About his smile and his eyes. About his hair and his skin. About his softness and his sweetness.About his elusiveness and his sadness.(Auston lives alone in a cottage by the sea and hires a young boy to take care of his house. There is something strange and intriguing about this boy and Auston feels more and more drawn to him.)





	Beyond the world, how deep does the water go

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my contribution to the Hockey Big Bang 2019, and even though it somehow turned out way longer than I intended it to be, I’m quite happy with how it turned out. 
> 
> There are a few things that I mentioned in the tags and that could be triggering. So please check the notes, if you’re wary. I’ll explain everything that I think could be problematic.  
After some consideration I decided to tag this story with “child abuse” even though Mitch is not a child in this anymore, he’s legal. But he wasn’t in some events he describes later in the story. Please check the endnotes, too. 
> 
> To my lovely and patient beta [ **Aether** ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherSeer/profile) I send chocolate and cupcakes and countless thanks. She had to deal with all my mistakes and my insecurities in the last weeks before posting and her work definitely made this a better story.  
I also want to thank [ **Jen** ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeslikeonyx) for listening to me whenever I had doubts about this story and encouraged me from the very beginning that this is an idea that is worth writing. ♥ 
> 
> I’m happy to add my story to the list of so many amazing others that are already published and that will still be published. 
> 
> [ **This** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfG3m4WFrQg) is the song that inspired the title. But I love all his music and listened to it al lot while writing this story. I think they fit the atmosphere of the story.
> 
> Graphics are both mine. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it. 

[](https://imgur.com/ikTeAYE)  


**Beyond the world, how deep does the water go**

The cottage is illuminated. 

A sight he should be used to by now. 

The lamps above the entrance door and on the porch are yellow dots in the approaching darkness; the rectangle of the living room window is warm with the glow of the fire in the oven and the low light above the kitchen table. As if someone stabbed holes into a dark navy cloth. In the close distance, waves are crashing on the rocks, everlasting and powerful. Lapping on the sandy beach below, gentle and ever-changing. 

A sound so familiar. Like the wind in the distorted fir trees, in the low cutting blades of grass that grows on the dunes. Like the whispering sand under his shoes when he walks over to the house. 

It's not the first time that Auston comes home to this sight. To the knowledge of a fire in the oven, the sounds of his coffee maker and maybe the smell of food. To the knowledge of someone being there. 

It’s not the first time. But it still feels new and strange. 

He never wanted the company of others, never needed it. Was comfortable in his solitude— craved it even; so much that he settled here. At the end of the world. 

__

The boy is waiting for him, standing at the kitchen counter and staring out into the darkness behind the house. Staring at the ocean; Auston knows that by now. 

Has caught him like this so many times that he stopped counting. 

Always staring at the ocean as if there was something he really wanted. 

At first, Auston didn’t think about it. Thought it was because the boy was off. Weird. Aloof. Just like Pat told him. 

“Maybe he’s a bit dense. Simple-minded. I don't know, but he’s friendly, nice and quiet and Christina never complained when he was around. He does whatever work she gives to him without complaining and he gets along well with the kids.”

Yet now he knows that’s not the reason. 

That the boy is anything but that. 

That the boy is _everything_ but that. 

Shy. Sweet. Sad. 

Seeking. Something. Solitude. 

So much that it makes Auston ache with it. 

__

There is a fire in the oven, a steaming mug of coffee on the counter and the table is set. The boy must have heard his car in the driveway, the opening of the front door and his footsteps, must have heard him coming into the room. 

But when Auston greets him he still flinches and spins around, looking so caught and trapped that Auston can't help feeling like an intruder, guilty for scaring him— for seeing something he wasn't supposed to see, for taking something he wasn't supposed to take. 

Then the boy smiles; a shy little thing while he can only meet Auston's eyes for about a second before he looks down again and comes over to him. Barefoot, jeans hunched around his ankles, the sweater huge on him and falling over his shoulders to reveal skin as pale and smooth as the cream Auston’s mama used to pour over his strawberries as a kid. 

"Christina made lasagna yesterday… she told me to bring you some?" 

He gestures to the oven, shrugs. Then he carefully steps even closer and starts to unbutton Auston's jacket with deft fingers. Eyes still downcast, lashes dark like spiders on his cheekbones. 

Auston stops breathing. 

It's not the first time the boy is close like this, not the first time he's the one approaching him. Not even the first time they are touching. 

But he never went for a servile gesture like this.

Never touched Auston like this… with soft and caring hond— so warm and welcoming. <del>And he can't figure it out if it's born of the need to make up for something</del>.

Auston swallows, allows the contact for two seconds before he finally finds the willpower to stop it and take a step backward, not doing what his instinct tells him to: to grab the boy's hand and softly pry it away <del>and hold it for longer to admire the spidery fingers, the sharp knuckles and the blue veins</del>. He takes a step backward and shakes his head, tells the boy that he doesn't have to do this. He takes a step backward and smiles, asks the boy if he wants to stay for dinner.

(He doesn't know why. He doesn't. Because he appreciates his aloneness. The silence. The complete difference to his usual life.) 

The boy stares at him, eyes wide, darting away and then immediately coming back to Auston. To just flicker like an old lamp and then avert him completely. 

"Thank you, sir. I— I have to go back and have dinner with my father." His voice is so low that Auston can barely understand him. "If you give me your dirty laundry I will start the washing machine tonight if you don't mind? So that it doesn't bother you in the morning."

Auston laughs. He sleeps like the dead in this house. With its windows wide open and the rooms flushed with air that smells of nothing but salt and purity. With the sounds of seagulls and the ocean and the wood creaking from the wind. 

"Don't worry about it. Compared to the noise on the platform, the washing machine is nothing." 

He goes to the bathroom to change, to pick up the bundle of carefully folded clothes that the boy set there for him: a hoodie, sweatpants and an undershirt. The fabric is warm and smells like the ocean. At least that's what he thinks, but as he's unpacking his bag with all the dirty laundry and putting it into the machine he realizes that it's not really the scent of the ocean. That it's not the same salty freshness that is luring him to sleep when he's in his bedroom during summer nights; with windows wide open and a breeze sliding over his body. 

There is something else mingled into the scent. Barely-there and so easy to miss. Probably has been there since the boy started to do his laundry. But now that Auston has noticed, he can't imagine he’d ever forget about it. 

A softness, a coziness. It seeps into his skin like august rain. Golden like the moment when the sun breaks through the clouds after a day of twilight. Comforting and warm and relieving like like the first sip of coffee on a winter morning. 

He inhales deeply. Soaks it up and memorizes it for later. 

Draws the hoodie up around his face to be surrounded by it. 

Holds his breath while he pours the detergent into the machine. Not able to stomach the thought of another scent intruding his sense.

When he gets back to the living room the lasagna is already plated: steaming hot and emanating a delicious scent that makes his stomach growl with the sudden feeling of hunger and he longs to sit down and rest. The boy is already in his jacket: dark blue and shiny to protect him from the rain, writing his grocery list for tomorrow to make Auston's life as comfortable as possible and evoking an emotion of unease at the idea of seeing him leave, distinguishing the need to recover with something else. 

Thankfulness? Protectiveness?

But when he offers to drive the boy home so that he doesn't have to walk, he just shakes his head, smiles. 

Says that he doesn't mind, that he likes this kind of weather— with winds so strong that he can feel the ocean on his face, in his hair, and on his tongue. 

The smile even reaches his eyes; soft and happy and dreamy. 

And yet it pales against the laugh as Auston tells him that he understands, that he loves moments like these as well. 

Open and bright and full of honest delight. 

Waves and seafoam. Cold and warm. Blue and turquoise, and every color of the ocean. 

__

It leaves him stunned. Breathless. Behind in the kitchen, while he listens to the light footsteps on the porch until they are gone and the boy is gone.

But it never really leaves him. 

Not when he's finally able to move and eat the lukewarm lasagna. 

Not when he's sitting on the couch, wrapped under the blanket, staring at the muted tv without seeing anything else. 

Not when he's falling asleep like that, <del>knowing</del> hoping that it would follow him into his dreams. 

__

He notices the bruises a month later. When he's sitting at the table and trying to focus on the newspaper the boy has brought for him from town this morning. But it's too easy to get distracted by the boy who finished putting away the groceries and is now washing the dishes; back towards Auston, he's standing at the sink, working quietly and almost soundlessly. 

His hair is longer now than when Auston met him half a year ago, almost too long for a boy, brushing almost his shoulders. The sun has paled the tips and dotted his nose and cheeks with light brown freckles. There are more freckles on the back of his hand— Auston has seen them before when he set the mug of coffee in front of him. 

It's the hand that Auston is watching now while it's brushing a strand of hair back behind his ear, revealing the column of his throat, long and still the color of milk (as if the only part of him the sun is able to touch is his face and hands). 

At first, Auston thinks he's imagining it, that it's only a shadow, but when he looks up again it is still there. Greenish yellow and pale purple on the side of the boy's neck. Not a hickey, definitely not a hickey. Too big and finger-shaped. 

His stomach clenches, but he keeps silent. 

__

Keeps silent even after he discovers more bruises later around the boy’s wrist; the same color, the same finger shape. And then on the boy's upper arm despite the long sleeve he's wearing to cover them up. That he's pulling down and fumbling nervously around with whenever he is talking to Auston or feeling his eyes on him. 

__

Keeps silent because the boy is finally warming up to him.

The smiles are less rare, the questions become more personal. The way he moves around Auston less careful.

(Auston has become ‘Auston’ when he addresses him instead of ‘sir’.)

"Don't you feel lonely… living here all by yourself? Don't you miss your sisters?" 

He has brought Auston many of their letters from the post office, must have noticed the Arizona post stamps. 

"I— I actually like it here, like the reclusiveness. But yes, I miss them a lot." 

The boy looks down towards his feet, barefoot as always with sand sticking on them from the walk. He doesn't even bother with shoes anymore; not even on a grey and cool day like today. It's like he's allowing Auston something to see, something he was forbidden before. 

"I can see that. The way you look out towards the ocean told me." 

It's a strange answer, but the boy is a strange boy. 

"And you? Who do you miss?" Auston wants to tease, only that it doesn't sound like that. 

"Everyone and everything." 

He is still not meeting Auston's eyes again. Still staring down at his feet; big toe following the gaps between the planks of the dock. A careful gesture, tender almost as if he's caressing the old wood, searching for something, listening for something. 

Auston holds his breath, wants to interrupt and warn him about splinters. Wants to ask about the meaning of the boy's words because his father is living in this town. Wants to know desperately whom he is missing. But when he's finally brave enough to ask he doesn't get an answer, didn't expect one. Only gets a cryptic reply. 

_'They are not real.'_

__

Later Auston would learn from the cashier in the small supermarket that the boy's father is not his real father. That he is adopted and that no one in town knows where he came from. One day he just appeared with the man that would become his father— quiet and wide-eyed. Pale and shell-shocked. Beautiful in a weird and disturbing way with his ocean eyes and the always sad smile.

__

That same day he watches the boy returning from the beach, arms loaded with driftwood: bleached out from the sun and saltwater, gnarled and old looking, dried seaweed tangled around it. The boy's jeans are rolled up to his knees and his skin is glistening from the waves when he appears over the dunes; lips bitten and chapped from the wind, his hair a windy mess. 

_Beautiful._

It takes Auston a few seconds to notice anything that isn't the wide smile, the carefree expression, the way he quickens his steps even after he has noticed Auston's gaze. 

"You don't have to do that, it's— I mean, I… I usually do that."

"I don't mind. But if you wanna help…? The storm two nights ago washed up a lot of dead wood." 

This is how Auston finds himself on the beach, pale blue sky above him that looks as weathered as the wood, as the sand and the waves that are whispering while they work silently; piling up all the logs and branches that they can find. It's a warm day, surprisingly nice for this time of the year; the sun is partly hidden behind the clouds that are barely moving at all, casting a golden white light over the beach, that drains the color out of everything: the ocean and the beach grass— everything besides the boy's eyes that are still as blue and deep as ever. 

After they finished cleaning the little cove Auston wades a few steps into the waves, enjoys the cold of the water, the itching of the salt, the freshness of the air while he soaks up the warmth of the September sun on his upper arms and his neck. He doesn't dare to close his eyes, doesn't dare to let his eyes drift away to another beach, to another ocean… that is so far away that it's only a memory. That it's almost a dream. 

Only he knows it isn't. 

It was true. Once. Long ago. 

He was happy on that day. At that beach. 

But he knows the past is past. And it would never come back. Not to him. 

And the past has the power to ruin his present. 

The present where he can turn around and find the boy sitting on the rocks close by, feet dangling in the water with drenched jeans and a soaked shirt after he swam there with some short and fast strokes. 

Close by, but too far away for Auston to follow him— not because he couldn't. Not because he doesn't want. Too far because even if Auston would follow him, he's sure the boy is as lost in his thoughts as he is. 

But it's still a more beautiful concept than dwelling on the things that once have been. A future still has the chance to become truth while the past will only hold pain. 

So he calls the boy's name, waits for him to look up and meet his eyes (so so blue, so so pale, reflecting every color of this sad beautiful day). Waits for the smile to spread across his face, the surprise, the delight. The expression that is everything but shallow, that is everything Auston needs to let go of all his disturbing thoughts. 

A face that is everything Auston thinks about these days. 

He shouldn't. He knows he shouldn't. Keep thinking about the boy. Not when he's here, cleaning Auston's cabin, working around the house and working for him. But especially not when he's away, while he's working seven days a week, sixteen hours a day on the platform; covered in oily uniforms and soiled. Dirty. Disturbed.

That's what it is— what he's doing. When he's finally lying in his narrow bunk bed at night or at the end of his shift (because day and night don't matter on the platform, only work matters, only counting the hours until they get back to land and to their loved ones). But that's what he's doing when he's alone in the dark, with the drumming sound of the waves crashing against the pillars of concrete underneath him. 

He's thinking about the boy. About his smile and his eyes. About his hair and his skin. About his softness and his sweetness. 

About his elusiveness and his sadness. 

He's thinking about the boy and biting his tongue, holding onto the steel frame of his bed so he wouldn't touch himself, wouldn't ruin his innocence with his impure ideas. Although he can't prevent them from seeping into his dreams, can't rip himself out of them, can't shake himself awake before he submerges into reality, with his left hand in his boxers, hard and leaking and disgusted with himself. 

He never finishes what he started during those nights, in his subconsciousness. 

But he still feels dirty, still feels hot when he watches the boy gather seaweed from the black rock and weave them delicately to a wet and dark green crown. Fingers moving swiftly, almost caressing the vines before adding another one, so occupied with that task that he doesn't even notice the crab that has started to crawl over his feet. Auston wants to warn him, wants to move over to him to shy it away, but then the boy lifts his leg and laughs as he watches the animal. 

'As if he's talking to it,’ Auston thinks. Even though he knows it's nonsense; ridiculous. 

And then the moment is over and with a short giggle the boy shakes his leg and the crab falls down and into the water. 

And then the moment is over and the boy is looking at Auston and meeting his eyes and his laugh melts into a smile. 

And then the moment is over and the boy is attaching the crown of seaweed onto his head and diving into the shallow ocean. 

For seconds that seem endless Auston can't see him anymore, even though he knows that he has to be right there, that he can't get far and can't disappear, not in a cove that shallow, not after they looked at each other like this. 

So he doesn't call for the boy, doesn't dive in and look for him, doesn't move at all until the boy appears right in front of him. Only half a meter between them, dripping wet, shirt soaked and see-through. When the boy appears in front of him, close enough to touch; wearing a smile as if Auston is the best thing he has ever seen. 

When the boy steps closer towards him until everything Auston can see is the blue eyes and the long fingers that are reaching for the seaweed crown to take it off and put it onto Auston's head. 

Neither of them speaks for the whole afternoon: they don't need to. 

They worked silently alongside each other and then they communicated with smiles and gestures and gazes. 

It was the most calming and most comforting silence Auston has ever head— even with his sisters there was always someone talking or the tv or radio playing. There were restlessness and overwhelming togetherness, clinginess even (that resulted from the loss of their parents but that was suffocating at the same time, too). 

Auston swallows when he feels the soft touch of the crown on his scalp, cool and dripping saltwater as if he's crying. It smells tangy and fishy, a bit rotten, but also almost sweet (of memories he never had, that are not _his_, not his to have). So he doesn't complain even though it should feel a bit disgusting and odd. 

Instead he smiles, feels his cheeks flush from the too-short touch, from the heaviness of the boy's eyes on him; their fondness and their tenderness. 

Feels special. Because somehow he knows— knows this is something he has earned, that this is nothing the boy would give to everyone else. Just like the smile. The openness. 

The glance he was granted while he was watching the boy sitting on the rock; so at home close by the ocean. Almost one with it. 

Bittersweet happiness. 

They are both cold by the time they have finished piling up the driftwood in the small shed beside the cabin. Cold and shivering because of their wet clothes. And they still haven't spoken one word since the afternoon. 

The sun has set half an hour ago but it's still not completely dark when they enter the house; feet bare and crusted with salt like their lips and their hair. Auston's crown has wilted, is hanging into his forehead, shriveled and blackened, but he waits patiently until the boy approaches him to take it off and place it in the kitchen sink with the same contemplative gesture with which he put it onto Auston's head. 

"I— I can lend you some clothes. You can't walk home like that, you'll catch a cold." 

They are the first words he has spoken since three hours and his voice is hoarse. Auston tells himself it's from the lack of use, not from their closeness. Not from the hopeful way the boy looks at him. 

"Can I— do you mind if I stay overnight?"

__

If there was one moment Auston should have stopped himself, could have prevented everything that would happen later… _this_ was it and he knew it even then. 

But he was lost, was unable to do anything but nod; ignoring the warning voice in his head, ignoring it with a heavily and happily beating heart. 

Willing to trade his fate for this one <del>night</del> evening with the boy staying in his cabin.

__

They don't talk much that evening. Like they never do. 

They don't need that. Never did. 

They are together and it's enough. 

And even while the boy is sitting on the kitchen table, bundled in Auston's overlong sweatpants and a too-big sweater, watching Auston prepare dinner while sipping tea and whiskey from a coffee cup.

He eats with an appetite that is almost unexpected, with huge bites that have something childlike; cheeks rosy from the warmth in the cabin, the tea, and the alcohol, still wet strands of hair hanging into his face. Shrugging only when Auston asks him if his father wouldn't be worried if he didn't come home tonight.

As if he doesn’t care. 

Yet there is something cautious, something wary in his eyes for a second. Insecurity, <del>maybe even fear</del>. It's gone before Auston can be sure that this is really what he has seen. Replaced by the same carelessness and defiance from before. 

"He won't care." He says— voice strange. It could be a lie; it has to be because Auston can't imagine that parents wouldn't care to know where their son is spending the night. Can't imagine his parents not caring… but maybe his parents had been different. Or maybe the boy's father is different. 

_What does he know?_

"Or… maybe I don't care." The boy adds with some hesitation, eyes flickering when he meets Auston's. And now there is definitely fear in them. It makes them even more blue than usual— the dark lashes around them spidery shadows on his cheeks and lids. 

Auston doesn't know which of those is the reason he doesn't insist on bringing the boy home. <del>At least that's what he tells himself</del>. 

Because when they are sitting on the couch later, on opposite ends and far away from each other, he can't help thinking that the boy is beautiful, that he likes to have him around: his almost soundless presence from the beginning, withdrawn and tentative… and even more this less shy, more curious and enthusiastic person that asks questions and opened up to him the way Auston opened up to him. Auston enjoys having him around, enjoys looking at him and finding his smile, enjoys listening to his footsteps and his laughter. 

Even though they don't talk much it's more entertaining than the tv, more fascinating and fulfilling to fit all the puzzle pieces together that he has gotten so far from the boy, to try and solve the intriguing mystery that surrounds him. 

__

Sometimes Auston wasn't sure if Pat hadn’t been right about the boy. That he was dreamy and aloof. That there was a reason why he had no friends at his own age and didn't go to university— why he didn't want to leave this godforsaken town at the end of the world and move at least to St. Johns like all the other kids at his age. 

Sometimes Auston wasn't sure if the other town people hadn’t been exaggerating when they called the boy strange. That he was different, dense and maybe even downright weird. That he always ducked behind his father when they met him on the streets or that he talked to himself whenever he was out alone. That he had been found in the middle of the night on the beach countless times; clad in frilly, soaked slips and nothing else. Crying. Sobbing. Desperate. That they had to call the police so they could sedate him before bringing him back to his father's house. 

Sometimes Auston wasn't sure if this was all in his head. That he made up something that wasn't there. That he just needed something to wrap his thoughts around. Something to fill the void in his heart that he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he worked on the platform. That he couldn't forget about even when he drank himself to sleep in his week off. That he couldn't distract himself from when he went to the only bar in town and found some company for the night. 

__

But it was all forgotten the next moment he saw the boy again.

__

It was all forgotten the next morning he saw the boy again. 

__

With the sight of the boy stretching in front of the windows of his living room. 

During the night he must have gotten rid of the sweater and the pants Auston gave him, because now he's only in the white shirt: stretched from Auston's bigger chest so that it flows around his body, worn out from years of wearing it and almost see-through, especially with the streak of sunlight that found its way through the grey clouds hanging low above the horizon. 

As if not even the sun couldn't bear the concept of not looking at the boy, not touching him with her caress. 

Outlining the shape of the boy's lanky body underneath the thin fabric like an old photography: the slight curve of his hips, the sinewy strength of his thighs and legs, the ladder of his ribcage. 

Painting his hair almost golden, a soft halo around his head. Illuminating the creamy paleness of his flesh. Emphasizing the colors of the bruises dotted all over him. 

_A picture of sin_. 

Because no one should ever lay harm on someone as beautiful and innocent as this. No one should ever be allowed to touch someone as pure as the boy. 

Auston doesn't know if he made a noise that betrayed him. (Most likely.) Or if the boy just sensed that he isn't alone anymore. 

But he turns around and looks at Auston. Looks at Auston and smiles. Invites him to come closer without speaking. Allows him to come closer and stretch out his hands. Stretch out his hands and touch him. 

(It's not the first time they have ever touched, they did it before and they did it last night.) 

Yet it is the first time Auston is touching him like this; almost intimate. With the boy's permission. With the boy's invitation. 

With the boy's hands grabbing his own and guiding them towards the seam of the shirt. With the boy's smile encouraging him to slide it over his head and take it off of him so that he's almost bare in front of him. 

Maybe it's all a dream. Maybe Auston is still lying in his bed upstairs, fighting his awakening because nothing can ever be as good as his dream. Maybe Auston is touching himself like he wanted to often before while he thought about the boy. 

Maybe he's bewitched and unable to distinguish reality from dream anymore. 

Except that it's not a dream. 

Because Auston's conscious mind would never be capable to come up with a vision like this: the fair skin bathed in golden sunlight, the long strands of hair a tangled mess from sleeping. The silky softness of the playful girl panties that looked so out of place and yet not; that emphasized the boy's long limbs and angular hips. That looked forbidden and sinful and so innocent at the same time. 

Because Auston's dreams are never this innocent. And Auston's own skin is not as soft and cool and trembling when he touches himself. 

_It's not a dream_. 

And still, Auston knows that he has to wake up. That this moment would haunt him forever (in his dreams, but not only in those. It would haunt him every time of the day. It would haunt him until his dying day. 

_It's not a dream_.

Because in a dream the boy's skin would have been unblemished and he would step closer, would press his body against Auston's and bury his face in Auston's neck; he would be happy and safe and _Auston's_. 

_It's not a dream_. 

Because there are bruises and scratches all over the boy's naked body. Purple and green and yellow; freshly crusted with blood and almost healed with brown scabs. On the thighs, around his neck and all down his bony spine. Huge handprints and small dots like bite wounds or cruel love marks. 

Auston wants to throw up. 

Auston wants to pull the boy against him and tell him everything is going to be okay. 

Auston wants to hurt. Whoever dared to lay hands on the boy. 

But he just swallows, inhales; doesn't do anything. 

The boy didn't show him because he wanted a reaction. He showed him because he trusts him and Auston won't ruin this gift. This moment in his shabby cabin, painted golden from the sunlight, with freckles of dust dancing around them and the everlasting sound of the ocean in the short distance. 

__

Auston doesn't like going to the town, never did. It's one of the reasons he started to look for someone who would run his errands there: buy his groceries, his newspaper and pick up his mail or send packages with little gifts to his sisters in Arizona. 

But there are some things the boy couldn't do for him. Cashing in checks, transferring money to his sisters. Half annual check-ups with the doctor. 

And there are also the days when the boy is over at the Marleaus’ place, cleaning the gutters and helping Christina set up the house for the winter. 

Then Auston has to drive to town. 

It always makes him feel uncomfortable, watched, studied and the center of attention. The foreigner. The American. The strange one who lives all by himself in a cabin by the sea. The one who barely interacts with the locals, except for the one-night stands he picks up at the bar. 

He doesn't know if they really gossip about him like that, but it's easy to imagine— with the way they are looking at him whenever he passes. Or how they speak to him: always smiling, always chatting him up super friendly and cheerily. Asking him about his sisters, his family (trying to find out if he has a special girl), inviting him to family dinners, a poor excuse to either set him up with their daughters or to flirt with him over home-cooked meals and Italian wine. 

(He didn't know that in the beginning and accepted those invitations, but he stopped after a few. It's not what he wants, not what he's here for.)

It's a grey day, with clouds hanging heavily and low in the sky— foreshadowing the upcoming winter. Just like the waves crashing against the rocks near his cottage or at the quay, murky brown with sickly yellow foam. Like the icy wind that smells of salt and rain and is about to become a serious storm soon. 

Auston readjusts the collar of his jacket when he leaves the bank office, flinches when the cold hits him with sudden force. He should get home before the weather gets worse and the waves float the coastal road. 

But when he crosses the street in front of the supermarket where he parked his car, he notices the boy. 

At first, he thinks that it's a mistake because it doesn't make sense— because it's so unexpected. He has never seen him in town. 

Yet it's really him; leaning against a large Silverado pickup that is parked at the gas station. As always he is absolutely inappropriately dressed for the weather, no jacket, no scarf… only jeans and an oversized sweater that hangs from his shoulder. And as always his hair is hanging around his face, although there is something strange about it that Auston can't place, something off. It's not only that it is longer than ever, and has started to darken during the autumn months. It's… 

Auston shakes his head, raises his hand to wave him; something he does without thinking. 

But even though he's sure the boy has seen him he never returns the gesture; instead, he turns away, avoids Auston's gaze. (Like a child who closes his eyes when it doesn't want to be seen.) 

For one second he has to fight the urge to walk over and greet him, talk to him. For one second it's hard to fight the urge. 

They have seen each other three days ago when the boy brought him groceries and spent the day in his cabin dusting off shelves and scrubbing the floorboards in the kitchen before sitting down with Auston on the porch, both of them sipping tea with rum from the big mugs, both of them talking quietly while the rain splattered down around them. They had both been barefoot, both worn cozy hoodies (both Auston's), but only the boy's cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, his eyes soft and glassy. 

(It was the first time he allowed Auston to drive him home, where he made him stop at the corner before sliding his fingertip over the back of Auston's hand, where he muttered a 'thank you'.) 

And maybe the only reason that he doesn't do it isn't the reaction of the boy - the embarrassment about seeing him - but the visible shudder that runs through his body when a man steps out of the gas station, pocketing his wallet and walking with a certain stride that says cocky and confident and that makes Auston want to get over there even more.

He shouldn’t feel like this. Shouldn’t want to react so strongly and almost protectively about the boy. 

He’s not one of his sisters.

He’s not in need of protection. 

He’s not _Auston’s_. 

So he doesn’t go over; just watched from a distance. 

The man must be the boy’s father. Pat had told Auston about him: a dark-haired, dark-eyed man that works in the docks. Born and raised in the little town like almost everyone else here and that didn’t come to work on the platform like Auston and Pat. Widowed young, when his wife died in childbirth together with the baby. Took in an orphan even though life was tough in times like this. Hard-working, always friendly, always helpful. Responsible and well respected by everyone in town. 

But watching him approaching the boy - his adopted son - Auston couldn’t help the unease, the sudden wariness: the distrust. 

There is something strange about the man. Something he can’t pin down. Something he doesn’t like. 

Maybe it’s the way he puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder; that he presses down too much, too hard. (Probably painful.) Maybe it’s the way he stands too close; that he cages the boy in against the door of the car; legs on both sides of the boy’s. (Probably touching.) Maybe it's the way he leans down to talk to the boy; that he whispers something in the boy's ear. (Probably threatening.)

Because even from the distance Auston can see that the boy leans away from the contact, turns his face, tries to make himself smaller; tries to disappear. 

Auston doesn't know why he doesn't go over when everything inside him wants to; wants to call the boy's name and get his attention, distract his father. Wants to make him step away from the boy. Doesn't know why he's too stunned and shocked to do anything. 

And then the moment is over and they move. 

The man grabs the door handle and opens the passenger door for the boy who bows down and gets into the car while the man walks around the hood to the driver's side. 

The moment is over and they are both inside the car and gone. 

The moment is over and the last glance Auston gets of the boy is his face through the windowpane when the sweepers clear the heavy rain away. It's pale and his eyes are wide and he's looking right at him, hands brushing back his hair before the only thing Auston can track is the red tail lights disappearing in the grey afternoon.

It feels unreal— was over so fast that he's not sure anymore if what he saw was even real even though the moment he watched the scene seemed endless. 

It feels unreal— as if his mind made it up. <del>Like so many things about the boy</del>.

Rain is hitting his face, drenching his clothes. Cold and shockingly real now while he still follows the car with his eyes. It soaks his hair and sneaks underneath his collar. He's shivering. 

But he can't shake the image of - unreal or not. 

The image of the boy averting his face. The blush coloring his cheeks with an embarrassment Auston can't figure out. The hand in his hair, just like that afternoon while he was washing the dishes in Auston's cabin, revealing his bruises for the first time. The pearly clip that holds the strands back above his ear. 

Beautiful and almost feminine. Strange and fitting at the same time. 

Just like the sweater the boy has worn: pale baby pink. Like the bangles that sparkled even in the dull light when he lifted his hand. 

Auston had to force himself to move, to get out of the weather. Had to get home before the storm hit the coast. 

But the whole drive this image haunts him. 

__

It haunted him during the night that he spent on the couch again, listening to the heavy rain clattering against his windows and the winds tearing at the walls. It haunted him in his dreams. 

How the boy had looked. How different and yet not. How the soft colors and the simple gold of the jewelry had fitted him. How well they suited him and emphasized his lanky limbs and sharp bones. 

It haunted him into his dreams that night and then into his daydreams the next morning. 

During his morning run on the windswept beach, cluttered with driftwood and garbage. During his shower in the small bathroom that smelled of detergent and salt and sweat <del>and not like the boy at all</del>. During his breakfast when his mind provided him the image of the boy showing up at his doorstep later today, loaded with his yellow backpack, with flushed cheeks from the walk from town, with windswept hair and a wide smile that was anything like the tight-lipped expression he had worn the day before. 

__

And indeed… when the boy knocks at his door later it is exactly like Auston pictured it. 

And yet, not. 

Because it's better when it's real. When it's not in his dreams and hopeful mind. 

__

They spend the day together. Gathering driftwood from the beach. 

It's wet and heavy and dark. Leaves stains on their sweaters and their hands. Smells of rotten seaweed and salt. But while they pile it up in the shed Auston can only smell the sweet scent of the boy. Can't feel the gnarled branches and the slimy texture of the wet bark. He can only feel the cool and bony structure of the boy's fingers when he passes him the logs. 

Can't hear the waves hitting the beach in the close distance, the soft drizzle of rain on the roof. Can only hear the quiet giggles after he told the boy about the movie he has seen last night. (It's a lie because Auston didn't watch a movie, didn't do anything but thinking about the boy.) 

They don't talk about their encounter the day before at the gas station. The boy doesn't mention it and neither does Auston. 

It may have been a dream - a nightmare. It may have been reality. 

But whatever it is. 

Auston would rather have this. These moments with the boy; no matter if they are made up by his mind or if they are real. 

He would rather have this. 

And he thinks the boy feels the same. 

__

"What about your father?" 

The boy looks up and meets his eyes; so shocked that he doesn't even hide his reaction. So shocked that Auston dared to mention this, that he dared to bring it up when he hasn't in the last months.

And Auston is shocked, too. Didn't mean to actually ever ask about the man. Only cared about the boy. 

But now the question hangs in the air between them and it feels heavy; unnecessary because the boy would never answer it. He would look down and continue cutting carrots and beets. Would maybe look around for a pinch of pepper and then for some minced garlic. 

Everything would look normal. 

But normal is the last thing Auston wants. Normal is the one thing he hasn’t felt since the day the boy turned his full blinding smile on him or stayed in the cabin for the first time. Since he spotted him with his father. 

So he gets up from his place on the table, steps over to the counter. (When did the boy start to not only cook him dinner but also stay for it? When did the boy started to allow Auston to drive him home? When did he start to touch his hand or his face before he got out of the car?) Stands beside the boy who is looking up at him; right hand still holding the knife, left one curled around the vegetables. His face a picture of confusion and curiosity. 

Yet there is no insecurity, no fear and that is enough for Auston to repeat the question. To carefully place his hand on top of the boy's and wind the sharp knife from his fingers. To not step away from him but stay close and pick up where the boy stopped. 

"He is not my father." 

(He makes it sound like a question. As if he's trying to figure out how much Auston knows.)

"What happened to your real parents? Did you know them?"

"My parents… I—" The boy stops in the middle of the sentence, shakes his head. "It doesn't matter." 

"Everything matters.” 

‘At least to me.’ Auston adds silently. Unable to voice it aloud. Because it’s too real, because he still feels too intrigued, too guilty. 

"No one does. Not me. And no one cares."

"Well… I do. I care. I'm here. Tell me, please."

If he sounds like he’s pleading he can’t change it. He’s desperate to know more about the boy, about that scene he witnessed and all the secrets that seem to surround the boy. 

"What happened to your parents? You know, don't you?"

And because he cares. So much. So much more than he ever wanted and planned. So much more about anyone that isn’t family. 

Yet he doesn’t get an answer. Not one that isn’t as cryptic as anything about the boy. 

"How can you ever know anything?" He whispers. "How can you ever be really sure you know something? What's real and what's not."

So many questions and insecurities in the boy's blue eyes. (Auston wishes they were for him.)

"And what makes something real? Someone?" 

(But if they are he can't answer them.)

The boy drops the beets and turns around. Finally looks at him; eyes turned upwards, lips shiny and red from licking and biting. Suddenly so close, so close, only inches separating them. Almost in Auston's arms, almost pressed against Auston. Cold and warm, shivering and comforting— confusing, so confusing. 

Breakable. And heartbreaking. 

Much later Auston would be insecure about that evening, about everything that happened or what they said. But right then it made sense. Or it didn't; maybe he just didn't care. Maybe the boy cast a spell on him, that bewitched his body his mind and soul. 

__

He doesn't know what woke him up, but it's still dark outside; only the palest hint of sunrise visible through the huge window above the bed, the sky just not navy anymore and the stars a little less bright. 

It's cold— as it always is in his bedroom. The fire must have gone out hours ago and not even a weak glow is indicating that there ever was one in the little oven. The air feels clean and purifying when he takes a deep breath while he tries to remember the blurry pictures of the dream he has just submerged. But no matter how desperate he clings to them, how much he wishes to return to them, he knows it's too late and they are gone. He's already more awake than sleeping and there is no way back to the warm feeling of arms around his body, of soft warm lips pressed against his upper arm, of tickling kisses raining over his skin. 

He turns around; draws the blanket higher, surrounds himself with their warmth now that he's feeling cold from the withdrawal of the lovely images and feelings. 

But then he stops. 

Right next to him there is the boy. 

Fast asleep. 

Not touching. 

Just lying beside him. 

Not covered by the blanket at all; wearing nothing but a sweater he got out of Auston's closet— overlong sleeves with only the fingertips peeking out, face hidden by the too-long hair, legs bare except for the small sliver of shimmering lacy boxers.

His breathing is even and shallow - indicating that he's really asleep not just pretending.

Auston blinks. Once, twice. Wishes it would be a fantasy— is afraid that it would turn out to be nothing but a fantasy. Then presses his hand down over the spot of his heart. Because all the blinking didn't help to chase away the truth. 

The boy is lying in his bed. He came here willingly and trustingly. 

The boy is sleeping next to him. Vulnerable and sweet— as everything is about him. 

The boy is seeking his protection; protection that Auston could provide. 

Carefully - to not wake him - Auston rolls onto his side, pushes himself up onto his elbow so that he is close to the sleeping boy so that he can watch him better. So that he doesn't fall asleep while the twilight of dawn is creeping into his cabin. Stays like this and watches the boy's peaceful face while the light changes and gives way to the daylight. 

Watches how the boy's face becomes clearer with every minute. How his skin color becomes less pale and his lip color redder.. 

The night fades into a layer of consciousness - at least for Auston. The blue gives way to a soft purple and then pink and orange. It makes the stars disappear and reality seep in. It also makes it easier to watch the sharp features and soft curves of the boy’s face. 

Auston knows what he's doing is questionable at best; disgusting at worst— no matter the circumstances of the boy coming to his bed, seeking this closeness. Because it was born out of trust and maybe loneliness or helplessness. And yet that makes Auston's behavior even more… weak. 

Sad.

Desperate. 

<del>Betraying</del>. 

But these feelings are not enough to make him turn away, close his eyes or leave the bed. 

Not when it's the boy who sought him out. Who came to him and shuffles closer to him now. Mumbling sleepily and making Auston question every single thread of reason that he still has left in him. 

Not when the boy finally opens his eyes and looks at him: no confusion, no surprise in them. Only relief and happiness. 

Not when the boy tentatively lifts his hand to Auston's face and brushes his thumb over Auston's cheek, the soft skin below his eyes and the corner of his mouth when Auston couldn't help the smile. 

His touch is cool and soothing, warm and comforting. 

It's more relaxing than ten hours of sleep, more soothing as any other touch Auston has felt since his parents died. 

__

_'I felt lonely on the couch.'_

_'I missed you.'_

_'I wanted to be with you.'_

__

The boy starts to stay overnight more often and Auston doesn't mind. At all. 

__

When he moved to the little cottage so far from the small town he wanted solitude, wanted to get away as far as possible from questions and stares. Wanted to hear the wind and the waves and the laughter in his memories and dreams, see the pale colors and the endlessness of the ocean that was so different and yet so similar to the landscape of his home. 

He asked for help, for someone dutiful and quiet, for someone whose presence he wouldn't notice around the house, who didn't talk to him and paid no attention to him. 

But then it was him who couldn't stop asking questions and staring at the boy. 

It was him who followed him with his eyes around the room and who felt restless whenever the boy left in the evening. 

It was him who wanted the boy around, invited him to stay for dinner, for a drink, for breakfast. For as much time as possible until Auston had to leave again for the platform with nothing but his self-loathe and the darkness in his heart— with nothing but haunting and forbidden dreams. 

They didn't leave him alone. Never. Just like the heavy sickness in his stomach, the tight feeling around his throat; a looming threat, a dooming fate that he couldn't predict or prevent. 

No matter how many shifts he worked, how many glasses of the cheap whiskey he downed. When he fell into his bunk bed at night the feeling was right there again, waiting for him like a thief in the shadows of his own house, attacking him from behind. 

It was always accompanied by visions of the boy— countless of them and one more tempting and consoling than the other. 

He thought he was going crazy. 

He wished they would stop. Wished he could make them stop. 

He wished they weren't the only reason anymore to look forward to the next trip home. 

He wished for many things; one more impossible than the other. 

__

But he never wished he wouldn't have met the boy. Not even later when he would stare at his blood-stained trembling hands. When he would stand in his shower, the hot water burning in the open wounds of his knuckles. 

Rivulets of pink water running down his body and into the drain until the water was clear and every proof of what he had done was destroyed. 

Not even much later when he would sit alone in the darkness, surrounded by the stench of mold and cold concrete. When everything he had left was nothing but the memory of the warm smooth body next to him, of sweet whispers and salty kisses. 

__

Coming home from the platform and seeing his little cottage illuminated stopped being a strange sight. It stopped being an unfamiliar sight. 

It became the sight that made his heart run faster. 

The image of it the reason he got up in the morning and onto the helicopter first, the reason he didn't stop at the bar anymore on his way home. The reason he started to refer to the cottage as _home_. 

__

This evening the boy waits for him on the porch. 

A slender and lanky shape in the headlights of his jeep, leaning against the wooden pole next to the steps: dressed in jeans and Auston's bulky lumber jacket, feet bare and hair dancing in the salty wind. It makes his heart beat faster. It makes his body feel lighter. 

It makes it impossible to not smile. To not get out of the car as quickly as possible and walk over to the house. To see the boy's eyes, to hear his soft voice, to feel his hands around his face when they brush back the strands around his face before they slide over his cheeks and jaw to find the corner of his mouth. 

As if he wants to check that Auston's smile is real. 

That it's really Auston who has come home to him. 

It is the only way they touch this intimately during the whole evening. 

Auston disappears in the bathroom to shower away the weeks of hard work, the jokes and behavior of an environment without women, the absence of the boy that he felt every minute there more and more. The bathroom and the towels and his fresh clothes smell of salt and cream and it hits him like a punch into his guts as he takes deep inhales while the hot water runs over his body. It's overwhelming in the best way. Conjures fantasies of the boy in here, naked and wet, hairless and smooth. Feels better just from breathing in the clear scent, cleansed almost— as if the presence of the boy alone could chase away everything that is dark and twisted and hateful, spreading into every narrow vein, into every cell and every nook of his heart and every twist of his brain. Purifying him from the inside like the water is from the outside. 

Afterward, they have dinner; cooked by the boy who doesn't pretend anymore that Christina or some other neighbor had leftovers for them. It's a simple meal, usually rice or potatoes with fish and vegetables, nothing tricky and nothing fancy, but Auston hasn’t eaten anything in a long time that satisfied and nourished him as his mama’s cooking did.

They have dinner in the low light of candles and the oven; it paints the face of the boy in a warm hue, almost dark enough so that Auston could miss the unusual paleness of the boy's cheeks and hands, the faint traces of bruises or the angry red scabs below his left ear: dozens of tiny dots where someone ripped out a huge strand of hair. 

Just like the cooking or the girl's clothes, the boy doesn't even try to hide these remains of mistreatment anymore. 

Sometimes Auston asks about them. Sometimes he doesn't. Because he never gets anything but a cryptic reply. 

Today he doesn't. 

Today they talk about the book that Auston will find on his pillow later. About the storm, the radio has forecast and the upcoming holidays. 

"Will you visit your sisters back home?"

"I’ve got to work. Couldn't get any vacation. And it would've been too little time to fly across the whole country."

"I'm sure your sisters will miss you." 

There is no reaction in the boy's tone; it's perfectly neutral. 

Auston doesn't want to think about the letter he received last week. All the words full of understanding and encouragement, trying to come up with plans for a huge gift package to make up for him missing Christmas at home. All the words tangled up with sadness and misery and hurt. 

"What is it that keeps you from going home? Why can't you stand being there even for two days?" 

The boy gets up from his chair and starts to clean the table, gathers plates and silverware without barely making any sound— all movements effective and careful at once, no porcelain clattering, no knives clinking when he piles them up in the sink. Leaving Auston behind, staring out of the window, stunned by the last question. 

"Why did you flee from home?"

No one has ever asked him. 

Not his coworkers. Not the women he spends his nights with. 

No one has ever wanted to know. Has ever even realized it. 

Not even his sisters. 

Maybe because they know. Maybe because they don't want to know. 

But now there is this strange quiet boy with his ocean eyes and saltwater hair… and he wants to answer them. Wants to tell him everything that happened; what he did. Why he ended up here. In this sleepy little town with its bleached skies and bone-colored beaches, that smells of tar and fog most times of the year and that sucks the hopes and dreams out of the people who live here so that nothing is left of them but hollow shells. 

_'I am rotten from the inside and everything I touch gets stained and ruined. Everyone I love gets hurt or killed. That's why I left. I had to protect my sisters, I had to escape their devastation and then later their pity. Their understanding and forgiveness.'_

He doesn't voice it aloud. Doesn't meet the boy's eyes; only looks down at his hands on the table, the lines in the wood, the scratches and stains from previous owners. 

When the boy's hand lands on his shoulder he's surprised and also not. Soundless as always he didn't hear him approaching, but he knows him well enough now to anticipate his doings. Knows him well enough to feel his presence; his warmth, his scent, his sadness. 

So he doesn't flinch, doesn't move or look at least up. He can't; is too afraid that the boy could read everything he wants to hide in his eyes. That Auston is as transparent as glass to him. And just as breakable— the boy's reaction could shatter him and leave him in pieces. 

So he just sits, holds himself still like a statue, gaze on the table without really seeing it. Without feeling anything but the warm weight of the boy's hand; first on his shoulder then on his nape and then in his hair. Combing through it with slender fingers that scrape softly over Auston's scalp; causing a shower of hot goosebumps that runs down his spine and leaves him boneless. 

So he doesn't protest, doesn't resist when the boy drapes himself over Auston's back, embraces him with his smaller body so that his arms are around his chest and his cheek is pressed against Auston's. 

Auston stops breathing. To not take in more of the boy's scent, to not draw comfort from him. (Because he doesn't deserve it— no matter how much he craves it.)

"You're a good man. Gentle and kind. No matter what happened that you feel like you're not allowed to go back home, that makes you punish yourself… I'm sure it wasn't your fault. It was an accident. You did nothing wrong." 

"You don't know that."

"I know your sisters miss you terribly. They want you to come home. And I know you. That is enough for me." 

"You shouldn't trust me." 

"There is no one in this world I trust more." 

The boy whispers the words in his ear; his breath hot and moist and tickling, making Auston shiver. Making Auston give in when the boy's hands brush down his arms and his fingers slide between Auston's. When he pulls him up and then out of the room to the bedroom upstairs. 

It's the first time the boy climbs into bed with him right away; no more pretending to sleep on the couch. No more lying next to him above the blankets in a safe distance. 

This time he curls himself around Auston; his whole body touching Auston's, arms around his chest, face tucked into his neck, lips close to his ear. 

Comforting words like summer rain, drip dropping into a deep dark pond, rippling the surface, creating circles that spread out until they disappear. Until everything Auston can think about is the touch around him, the warmth that is not coming from the blanket and that shouldn't come from the boy since his skin is still cool like that summer rain, like the wet sand on the beach. 

This time he doesn't ask Auston if he's allowed to stay the night. 

He simply does it. 

Take the place that has been his from the night he first claimed it sneakingly and shyly. 

_'You're a good man, Auston.'_

_'You don't deserve whatever punishment you're putting yourself through.'_

_'You don't deserve rotting away in this godforsaken town at the end of the world.'_

It’s so easy to let himself be pulled under the spell of the boy’s words. To let them wash over him like the waves that are lapping on the beach in the distance— gentle and caressing; not like the breakers that shatter and roar against the construction beams of the platform at night. To submit himself to the soft touches that he has craved so much and that are so different than he imagined them to be— innocent and familiar, not like the hands of the nameless women that he used to pick up on his first night back on land. To allow himself to be weak, protected by someone he trusts, someone who is able to see the worst of him and still surrounds him with a tenderness that has nothing to do with desire— feather-light and pure; not like the arms that he has become so used to that he started to confuse attraction with affection. 

_'You should flee before it's too late.'_

__

But Auston knew it already was. 

Too late. 

__

When he wakes up the next morning it's almost noon and he can't remember the last time he slept that long; the last time he felt that well-rested. 

When he wakes up he is all alone in his bed; still in his sweater and pants, covered by his blanket. It's stuffy in the little attic bedroom, the warm sunlight adding to the feeling even though it's actually icy cold outside. 

Can't remember what he has dreamed the night before— how it felt to lie in the boy's arms. 

When he wakes up he wishes he would still be asleep, with the boy pressed close, skin on skin. That he could turn back time and relive the night without sleeping at all. So that he could etch it into his brain for all the days to come he would lie alone in the darkness. For all the days he would spend alone and missing the boy. 

Now he only has the scent of him on the cushion and the sounds of him when he climbs down the stairs and steps into the living room. The sight of him in the warm sunlight, reflected by the snow outside and caught by the golden bracelet around his left wrist. 

It's already cozy in the cottage which means that he's been awake for a while, but Auston knows that that's not the reason why the boy is just in his underwear. He can't feel the cold, or at least that's what it looks like because Auston has never seen him freezing or bothered by low temperatures. Has watched him last time stepping out onto the frost-covered porch barefoot, has walked to the frozen beach in nothing but his frilly shorts and Auston's lumber jacket to return with fragile gifts like translucent shards of ice that barely melted in his cold hands or dune grass bespeckled with snow crystals. 

Just like all the mornings after boy has stayed overnight, he has a cup of coffee waiting at Auston's place on the table, steaming hot and freshly poured. Just like all the mornings, he is standing at the stove, stirring in a pan with sizzling bacon and eggs. 

Unlike all the other mornings, today he is playing music— not the local radio station with the inevitable pop and Christmas songs, but one of Auston's few records. As if he knows that Auston can't stand the festive mood that has infected the whole country and that makes him choke. 

It's the steely and hollow voice of a female singer he doesn't recognize, and doesn't really care for when the boy is humming softly with the melody; it's a bit off-tune and his voice is too deep to fit, but he looks carefree and happy and Auston can never get enough of seeing the wide smile and the light in his eyes when he turns around to greet Auston, brushing back a strand of his too-long hair.. 

<del>Revealing a string of bruises on the collarbone</del>. 

Unlike all the other mornings, today he sits down with Auston, helps himself to a portion of eggs and toast, cradles the mug with his sage tea in both of his hands as he pulls his legs onto the chair. It looks awkward because his limbs are too long to fit; and youthful, almost childish. 

But Auston doesn't comment on it, is used to the strange habits the boy reveals sometimes— most of the time. Is charmed by them the way he is usually appalled by when he spots women doing it. Not because it's less fake; because it is. It's something he clearly has picked up somewhere, on tv or maybe from girls at his school. Yet the meaning is different, the intention behind the movement that feels like helplessness, like cluelessness: like he doesn't know how to behave otherwise. 

<del>There are more bruises on his kneecaps and around his ankles</del>. 

Unlike all the other mornings, today he doesn't grab his things in a hurry and skips out of the house because he has other obligations. 

Today he stays and Auston would rather meet the devil than ask him why he doesn't leave. 

Today he watches him shoveling eggs and toast into his mouth and eating with an astonishing appetite, finishing even Auston's plate when he is done. Watches him doing the dishes, hands playing around with the soap bubbles while he waits for Auston to hand him the dirty cutlery, sleeves pushed back and rolling his eyes with annoyance whenever they slide down and he has to wait for Auston to get them out of the way again. 

<del>Uncovering a long cut on the underside of his arm that stretches from his elbow to his armpit</del>.

Today he watches him until he's unable to do so any longer. Until he can't hold the words back any longer for it feels like they are poisoning him from the inside, spreading into every fiber of his lungs and blackening them. Until they burst out of him and into the quiet peace of this sun-filled winter morning. 

"Who did this? Who is hurting you?"

Destroying the mood as if he hit the boy himself. 

"Why aren't you getting help? I mean, if you… it doesn't have to be me. You don't have to tell me if you don't trust—" 

The boy clasps his hand over Auston's mouth, shakes his head so hard and so suddenly that Auston flinches backward. But it's more that he looks so… firm. Intent. And angry. Angrier than he has ever seen him before. (Something so strange and unfitting that it's almost more shocking than the bruises and the cut.) 

"I _trust_ you. I trust you more than I've ever trusted a human being before." The boy withdraws his hand. His eyes are wide and full of hurt.

"Do you think I'm a liar?" 

Auston's lips taste soapy and salty, but he shakes his head. Taken aback by the reaction, by the notion of insulting the boy. 

"No… but sometimes keeping something from someone who wants to help can even be worse than lying. Because that's what I want. I want to help you."

This time the boy reaches for the towel and wipes his hands; thorough and slow movements, making sure every spot of them is dry. Before he steps closer. Closes the distance between them— something he still does so rarely except for when he comes to Auston's bed at night. Slides his arms around him and puts his head against his chest. He doesn't raise his eyes, keeps them low— as if he could break the spell between them, as if he doesn’t have the courage to do that. 

As if he could spook Auston away. 

<del>Never. He could never do that</del>. 

His touch is gentle and hesitant and yet. Not. It's confident and full of purpose. Like the night before when he took Auston's hand and made him follow him upstairs. Light brown hair is tickling as he turns his face and buries it in the crook of Auston's neck; nose pressed into his flesh, lips brushing his skin. Barely-there and yet. The only thing that Auston can feel. The only thing that matters. 

A tattoo, a branding. 

Making it impossible to do anything else but also putting his arms around the boy's smaller body, just as gentle and hesitant. And yet. Not. Because this is the <del>only</del> thing he wanted to do for months, maybe even since the boy came up to him for the first time to take off his coat. 

They fit perfectly. Warm and cool. Broad and slender. Rocks and water. So different and so devastating. 

"And that is exactly why I want nothing more than tell you and exactly why I can't tell you. I can't tell you because you can't help me, because it would bring you only trouble if you tried. And because you're a good person and I can't bring this upon you." 

The sadness in the boy's voice is almost painful to listen to, instinctively makes him hold onto him more, tighter; pull him closer. Wants to take away his sorrows, wishes his touch and embrace would be enough to obtain that. (A selfish wish, a futile wish.)

Because the only relief it brings for them both is a soft and sweet sigh, a deep but almost soundless exhale, that seems to at least calm the boy down. Auston can feel the tension leaving his body, feel the boy melt against him. 

"I'm not a good person, believe me. But you don't have to tell me if you can't. Just… if there is something I can do for you, anything. Then tell me at least this."

With gentle touches and lingering caresses, the boy detangles himself from Auston, pulls back until they are no longer skin on skin and pressed against each other. And the only reason Auston doesn't hold onto him and stop him from distancing himself is that now he finally meets Auston's gaze again; looks up at him with wide eyes— blue and open and so trusting that Auston swallows. 

Swallows again when the familiar smile spreads on the boy's face— wide and sweet and so happy that Auston has trouble believing that the last minutes even happened. (Only that he knows they did. That he won't ever forget how the boy clung to him and sought comfort in his arms.)

They finish the dishes in silence. The only sound is the clinking and clattering and the record tunes that fill the room like the sunlight from outside. 

It's a beautiful day and they both keep looking out to the ocean, to the snow that is sparkling on the porch and the dunes. Not much, but enough to raise the hope of a white Christmas in the hearts of the people in the town. 

Deciding to ignore everything - their letters, their duties - the boy pulls him out onto the porch and into the shocking cold. 

Then they walk down to the beach. Not talking, but always close enough to touch, always at Auston's side with his wide smile. 

His real smile— the one Auston has somehow earned the privilege to see (even though he doesn't know what he did). The one Auston has waited for months and weeks to see. The one he misses the second the boy leaves. 

The one that makes Auston feel so special because he now knows that no one else gets it. 

The boy is still barefoot and wearing nothing but the jacket Auston gave him this morning and the hoodie he took out of Auston's closet. A sight to behold while he walks along the shoreline, leaving footprints that vanish seconds after he has left them. Legs paler than the sand and with windswept hair he climbs the sharp rocks, laughing brightly when the waves crash against them and spray him with seafoam. Fingers icy cold when he runs back to Auston and shows him what he found, looking up at him with eyes so lively and happy that it takes away Auston's breath, that he is too stunned to withdraw his own hands before the crab is placed into them. 

But not even then he can tear his eyes away from the boy, who looks so delighted and proud that one could be fooled and think he gifted them a beautiful and expensive diamond instead of a wet and spidery crawling creature. It reminds Auston of Bree when she was younger— so precious and so endeared with every living thing. It reminds Auston of himself as a child: of the collection of glass jars on his windowsill where he kept bugs and butterfly cocoons until they broke through and spread their wings to fly away. How he loved to watch them and tend to them. 

He was once like that. And he misses that time. 

So he doesn't drop the crab and instead brushes a careful fingertip over its hard shell, tickles its softer and paler belly, lets himself be scratched by the thin legs until finally the boy takes pity on him and plucks the animal out of his hand. 

Later they walk back to the cottage, the boy no longer insecure. Their steps in sync even though Auston is half a foot taller. But the boy's legs are long and it's easy for him to keep up with Auston. Occasionally their hands are brushing, sandy and salty from the water. 

Auston wants to grasp it, wants to close his own around it and keep it inside his own; absorb the cold and warm up the clammy skin— something that is not necessary because the boy runs cold. It's a selfish wish, like so many others that the boy awakes in him. So he doesn't give in and reach for the boy; doesn't pull him in against his side. 

"Why aren't you getting cold?" He asks instead, the back of his hand burning from the most recent accidental touch. "Why do you hate shoes so much?" 

He doesn't expect an answer. (It's more to tease.)

And he doesn't get one; only gets a giggle in return before the boy speeds up and runs a few steps ahead, then turns around to look at him, walking backward and smiling wide. Almost like a fata morgana. (Teasing Auston in return to catch up to him, to catch him and hold him.) 

Yet unlike a fata morgana, he waits for Auston on the porch of the cottage, waits for him and then throws his arms around Auston's neck and presses his body against Auston's. Very solid, _very real_. 

Suddenly as tall as Auston because he's standing on the lowest step, they are face to face and eye to eye and close enough to kiss. Kiss for real this time; not one of those affectionate gestures that are born from thankfulness, tenderness, and sweetness. 

They could kiss for real this time. 

Suddenly Auston's head is spinning with the temptation of this opportunity. With the possibility of this opportunity and the knowledge that the boy would not only allow it but welcome it even. 

Suddenly his heart is aching with a longing to do it. To lean in and bring his mouth to the boy's; carefully and soft and fragile as spiderwebs— with a barely-there touch, like a dream. Just enough to feel the plush texture, to taste the saltiness and the cold. To convert all the confusion and fascination and affection into touch, because he can't name them, can't voice them aloud. 

But he doesn't. 

Everything inside him wants it. _Wants_ it like he can't remember wanting anything like this before. Like he can't imagine wanting anything like this ever again. 

He doesn't. 

Instead, he brings his hands around the boy and holds him: looks at him and memorizes every single detail. Looks at the boy's face and into his eyes, counts the long dark lashes and learns the sweep of his nose, the arch of his cheekbones, the shape of his lips while his fingertips tingle from feeling the boy's skin through layers of clothing: the dips and dents of his spine, the sinewy strength of his back muscles. 

Nothing about the boy is what someone would call beautiful, maybe not even pretty. Yet at this moment he is the most beautiful thing Auston has ever seen and touched. And at this moment he realizes that he is lost. That he has lost himself in the boy a long time ago. 

That he would do everything for him. 

Without condition. Without getting anything in return. 

He would do it. 

__

He did it. It cost him everything. 

Everything he had and was.

And he got nothing in return. 

__

But he would do it all over again. Without hesitation. Without regrets. 

__

It's starting to get dark when they can hear the sound of a car approaching. 

They are sitting at the table, the boy writing a grocery list for the upcoming holidays, grinning proudly after persuading Auston that he needed at least some Christmas lights and candles to decorate the cottage, that he would come over on Christmas Eve with gingerbread and cookies to keep Auston company. 

(He couldn't stand the idea of Auston spending these days alone, so far away from home and his sisters. And Auston thinks it's sweet, like everything about him.) 

At first, none of them pays attention to the sound: the boy too occupied with making plans and Auston with refusing them. But then the boy lifts his head and asks him if he expects someone. 

Auston never expects someone. He never has guests, does barely have friends here and he would never invite one of his hookups here. Not before he met the boy because he liked his privacy, and definitely not since the boy has started to work for him. It… just seemed wrong. 

So he denies and watches the boy visibly pale before he jumps up so fast and abruptly that the chair scratches over the floorboards and almost falls over. He looks so shocked that Auston gets up as well and reaches for his hand. 

"Hey, it's probably just someone who's looking for the hotel further north. Don't worry, I'll tell them which road to take and then we're good."

"No… no, no, it's _him_. He's coming for me." 

The boy runs over to the couch, starts to take off Auston's hoodie and tosses it on the floor, fingers visibly shaking as he pulls his own sweater over his head and reaches for his pants. The look on his face almost resembles fear and it's enough to make the hairs stand in Auston's neck, almost as much as the raspy whispers before. 

He knows who the boy is talking about. Has known it all along. But this time Auston is here, this time he won't hurt the boy again. 

When he steps over to the boy and places his hand on his shoulders he can feel him trembling underneath his touch, can almost hear the frantic heartbeat and the heavy throb of blood inside the boy's veins. His skin is colder than ever before, his lips almost purple with shock. 

He looks so helpless and lost that Auston doesn't think twice; doesn't hesitate to reach for the waistband and hoist it over the slim hips… his fingertips grazing over the boy's thighs and ass, the flat plains of his stomach when he closes the button for him. Without having time to think about it, without having time to appreciate it. Only thinking about the boy, about his despair and wish to be properly dressed before facing his father. 

(They haven’t done anything. But the way the boy can’t meet his eyes with discomfort and shame is enough to tell Auston that he doesn’t want his father to know that Auston sees him like this.) 

The staccato of heavy footsteps on the front porch is unusual, makes them both flinch as if they have been caught doing something forbidden <del>even when this is the least sinful thing Auston has ever dreamed about the boy</del>.

The knock on the door is harsh and surprising even though they both have known that it would come. 

But it’s no surprise that the man is already in the hallway when Auston goes to open the door. 

He's tall, taller than Auston remembered from the one time seeing him at the gas station. About twenty years older than him, on the bulky side, a little soft around the middle but still broad and strong looking; the kind of strength that comes from doing physical work for decades. 

'I could take him,' he thinks, blocking the way to the living room, blocking the way to the boy. 

"Where is he? I know he's here… so please get him for me. He has other duties at home besides working for you." The man mirrors his stance, hands crossed in front of his chest, chin raised. His eyes are dark and hard. 

"Maybe he has forgotten, maybe he wanted to forget about it."

(There is nothing of the boy in the man's features; nothing but the proof that they aren’t related.)

"I don't care about the reasons. I'm here to pick him up and remind him that his family needs him."

"You mean _you_ need him." 

The man frowns. 

"Look, man, I appreciate that you hired my son and that you're paying him graciously for his help, but this… this is different. So I'd appreciate it if you stayed out of this."

"It's hard to do so when you show up here in my home uninvited and demand to see your son in such a rude way." 

"Believe me, I'd rather not… but I got worried when he didn't show up for the whole day, _again_. I'm aware that he sometimes stays overnight at your place when the weather is bad— and that's fine with me as long as he returns the next morning.“

Everything in his face; the frown, the twitch around his lips, the head shake… it told Auston that it wasn't _fine_.

So Auston just nods, still blocking the door, fakes understanding when probably everything in _his_ face tells the man that he doesn't trust him one bit, that he doesn't want him here at all. 

"Look, I really appreciate that you're letting him crash on your couch but… I'm his father. I worry when my son is not in his bed in the morning. You may not get that now, but wait until you have kids on your own. You always worry when they don't come home at night." 

Something has changed in the man's behavior and his stance: he's no longer holding himself upright, his voice sounds less defiant, his features look less aggressive. 

Like a distressed parent. 

Or like someone who has realized that demands and barely veiled threats won't get him the results he wanted and decided to change tactics. 

(Maybe it would have been enough to fool someone. Maybe it would have been enough to fool Auston— if he hasn't seen the shock on the boy's face before, the fear. The despair.)

"I think he's old enough to stay overnight somewhere else without telling his father. Most boys his age are already going to college." 

Auston leans against the door frame, still refuses to let the man pass into his living room. It's probably impolite… just like the man neglected his privacy when he entered his home without an invitation. So he doesn't care at all. 

From the corner of his eye he can see that the boy is dressed by now; wearing his jeans and sweater; frantically rearranging his hair and hiding the pearly clasps in his pockets. (He still looks flushed and embarrassed.)

"Yeah, that's probably true… but he's not. He's still living in my house and therefore I'm still allowed to worry." He huffs a short laugh as if appealing to Auston's understanding— as if he's making a joke

Only that Auston isn't fooled. Hasn't forgotten the darkness in the man's eyes, the possessiveness he has displayed that day at the gas station. 

But before he can reply the boy fully opens the door. 

"I'm here, father. I just… I forgot the time. Sorry I got you worried." 

He meets neither his eyes nor Auston's; stares at the floor, not able to bear their looks, the weight of their gazes on him while they both take him in. Both probably trying to find something unusual about him, something that is wrong and a reason to go back to their prior anger. A part of Auston even _hopes_ to find something, doesn't like this uncomfortable and fake truce. Almost wishes for it. 

Seeing the boy wearing jeans and socks and sliding into his shoes is so strange and he realizes it has been ages since he last saw him like this: every inch of his skin covered, closed up and his expression so far away when their eyes finally meet for a short fleeting moment. 

Everything that before was happy and bright and alive is gone. 

The light in his eyes is switched off so completely that it's hard to imagine it was really there. Hard to believe that Auston hasn't dreamed it. 

Then the second is over and the boy is kneeling down to tie the laces of his boots and Auston makes the mistake of looking at the man; looking at the man and finding him watching the boy with a pleased and avid glow that he almost seems feverish. It's such a complete difference to before that he steps forward instinctively, wants to stand in front of the boy so that he's shielded from this rapture. The only reason he doesn't - _can't_ \- is because of the boy jumps to his feet and stops him by placing his hand on Auston's arm. 

Placating him. Giving him the shortest and smallest smile— barely a twitch. 

_'I'm okay. Don't worry about me. I'll be okay.'_

But it's enough and Auston lets his hands sink, only now realizing that he balled them into fists. 

No one of them speaks anymore. Neither the man nor the boy or Auston. 

(He doesn't know what to say, what he could say, for he has no right to keep the boy from going with his father, not when he clearly goes willingly.)

He just stands in the door frame and watches the boy hoisting his backpack before pulling the lapel of his jacket higher, dragging them tighter around him. Watches him brushing back his hair before stepping back to allow the man - his father - to open the front door for him and leave the cottage. Before following him with his head lowered. 

Before meeting Auston's eyes the last time; for one long too short moment. Really meets his eyes— no haziness, no absence to cloud the blue. Only thankfulness, warmth. 

That is snuffed out like a candle when the door falls shut behind them. Leaving Auston all alone. 

With too little oxygen in his lungs and too much pain in his chest. 

__

That night it starts to snow for real. Huge and heavy flakes that fall softly onto the deck of his porch, dancing through the air before landing in the frozen ground, covering it with a thick blanket of white. Settling in the footsteps they left in the sand before. 

That night he doesn't fall asleep until he has drunk half a bottle of whiskey but he doesn’t even expect anything else. 

That night the cottage feels too cold, too quiet. Too empty. 

And all he can see is the boy's smile… the way he looked up at him while he wrote the shopping list. 

All he can hear is the boy's laugh… the way he smiled at him while he stood on the steps of the porch, arms slung around Auston's neck and his face so very close. 

All he can feel is the boy's presence… the way it filled the cottage into the very last corner, like the morning sun, like the sound of the waves and the scent of the sea. 

__

Auston doesn't think the boy would appear the next morning. 

So he isn't surprised. 

Is almost relieved… when he picks himself up from the couch where he has fallen asleep the night before— drunk, way too drunk. Where he has dreamed about pearls and seashells and red sweaters. About soft skin and softer hair; the plushest pair of lips pressed against the back of his hand, long limbs stretched alongside the front of his body. About a laugh that brightened his day and thoughts in a way the sun never could. 

_Is_ relieved that the boy doesn't have to see him like this. 

A sweating and sleepy mess; hair in disarray, eyes swollen and cushion lines on his face. 

Lost and loathing. 

Because he didn't do anything. Didn't stop the boy from leaving with his father. Basically handed him over like a spineless fool. When he should have stood up and kicked the man out of his cottage. When he should have told him to never show his face here again and never touch the boy again. 

__

Auston is weak. Has known it before. When he moved away from his home, from his sisters. When he decided to run away from his memories… as far as possible. 

But still not far away enough. 

When he drank at night or picked up random girls to keep him company. So he didn't have to remember. 

But it was never enough. He always remembered in the morning, in the light of dawn when he snuck out of their houses. 

__

It won't be enough tonight either. He knows it. 

Knows it and still drives to the bar later that night after he spent the day restless at the cottage; running in the morning, chopping wood, sitting on the couch until he couldn't stand it any longer because there was not one piece of furniture, no corner of the room, no shade of light that didn't remind him of the boy. 

Who didn't show up today. Neither at the supermarket where they wanted to meet, nor here to decorate the cottage and spend the evening like he promised. 

Not that Auston expected him to. 

So he leaves. Flees from the house and his worries; the neverending pictures that assault him when he closed his eyes for a moment. 

(The boy at his house with his father. The punishments he would probably have to suffer. The pain he’s in and the bruises he would spur.) 

He drives back to town and to the bar that he hasn't visited in months. Hasn't even thought about. But when he enters everything is still so familiar; the bartender, the patrons, the blinking red lights and the low shitty music, the stale smell of alcohol and cigarettes and cheap perfume. 

Without any more words than a short greeting he accepts the whiskey the bartender slides over the counter and then makes his way to the pool table in the back, eyes sliding over the other people sitting in the booths lining the wall or on the little tables. 

He doesn't know why he's so surprised that the bar is packed. It's Christmas Eve— all the lonely souls feel even more lonely. And there are many lonely souls in a town at the end of the world. Man working on the platforms, far away from their families. Older men who lost their families or never had one. And young folk who can't go somewhere else. 

Auston isn’t sure in which category he fits; probably all of them. 

With a short nod he joins the other two men at the pool table, starts to chalk up the queue. They usually don't talk, they just play and drink: three rounds of cutthroat with the loser paying the drinks for the next round. And then finish their last drinks watching sports on the tv above the bar and Auston waits until one of the girls comes up to him or catches his gaze. 

(Auston almost never pays for the drinks and he never leaves the bar without company for the night.)

Today it's easy. Maybe even easier than usual. Because he can feel the heavy weight of wandering eyes on him while they are still playing. Whenever he is bending over the table to take aim or when he's leaning at the side and sipping his drink. She is pretty and she is young and definitely not one of the women that hangs out here usually; at least he has never seen her before. But a lot of things can change in a couple of months. 

She could be the girlfriend of another platform worker who didn't get time off for Christmas. She could just be out with her friends looking for a good time in the only spot of town that is open during this time of the night. 

He doesn't ask. 

He doesn't care. 

She is what he needs right now. And he is probably what she needs, too. 

Because she comes over before they finish their last round, and takes the cue out of his hand and just… sinks the ball he was aiming for. It is a pretty bold move and Auston is pretty impressed. Even more when she quickly sinks three more balls, leaving his opponents with only one ball each. 

"I didn't want to wait for you to finish them." She whispers before she kisses him after they left the bar. 

Her apartment isn't far to walk; it's tiny and too warm, with a red painted hallway and bedroom. As red as her nails and her lipstick that is smudged when they stumble to her bed and she wipes it away with a tissue from her nightstand. 

(Auston didn't like the artificial taste of it.) 

Her sheets and cushions smell of shampoo and fruity body lotion, very sweet and almost too much, but when he kisses her again she sighs and when he kisses his way down her body after taking off her blouse and skirt, she moans. Loud, and anything but sweet. 

(Auston doesn't like it that much, even though it fits her.)

Her skin is soft and sweaty and it's easy to let himself forget while he satisfies her with his mouth; her legs around his face and her hands in his hair she pushes herself against his lips, clenches around his tongue, responsive, eager and demanding. Wet and salty and musky. 

(Auston likes her taste: it reminds him of seaweed and deadwood washed ashore.) 

Later she climbs onto him and rides him, hair a blonde mess, mascara smudged, still in her bra that is red like everything around him. But her breasts feel good in his hands, like she feels good around him, above him. Tight and hot and everything he has to do is close his eyes… only to open them again, to look at her heart-shaped face, the flush covering her cheeks and chest. To focus on her so that he doesn't lose himself in his head and dreams. 

It takes him longer than usual to come, but she doesn't seem to mind. Moans loudly when he finally does and she slumps down on his chest, hair and hands all over him, lips pressing kisses against the side of his throat, sucking on the spot underneath his ear and talking breathlessly about her family and her friends. How she couldn't go home to Halifax because she drew the short straw for the Christmas shift tomorrow. 

Auston only listens, doesn't tell her about his sisters or why he doesn't visit them. He keeps his arms around her body and looks at the ceiling that she decorated with drapes and shawls and fairy lights until he can feel his thoughts slipping away to the boy and he has to pull himself out of it. 

_'It's not Christmas without fairy lights. I can lend you some from my room if you want.'_

So he turns his face and kisses her again, feels her smile against his lips, drinks in the sounds that she makes, relishes the way she starts to move against his body, slow but with intention. 

"Again?" An amused chuckle. Then a hand around his cock, a bit too dry, but nimble and curious. 

This time he fucks her from behind. She is still wet, but she still gasps and moans when he bottoms out, when she arches her back to get him deeper. 

Auston feels guilty— he doesn't like this position: not seeing the woman's face. Knows that his mother would disapprove but he can't. Looking into her eyes… the hope, the softness in them. He would feel even worse if did. He knows he's not using her; that she's having a good time, too. That this was never about anything but sex. 

And maybe she knows. 

Maybe she is also trying to forget someone. 

He hopes it works better for her. 

__

Because this night everything he sees in his dreams are the boy's eyes and the sweep of his lashes when he lowered his eyes after they had almost kissed on the steps of the porch. The wide laugh that was so happy that Auston felt electric sparks all over his body when he looked up at him again. The so much softer smile when he finally grabbed Auston's hand and led him back inside. 

Everything he hears is the panic in his voice when the car stopped in the driveway. The despair and fear while he stumbled around the living room trying to get into his clothes as fast as possible. The resignation and surrender when he whispered his goodbye before he followed his father. Telling him he should not worry. 

Auston doesn't know if the boy has bewitched him, doesn't know if that's possible. 

Only knows that he has to get away from the girl because she's another person he's lying to and she doesn't deserve that. 

He's sober when he leaves the very red apartment, leaves her behind sleeping, not even blinking when he detangles himself from her, blonde curls over her face, faint traces of lipstick still on the cushions. Leaves without a note because he's sure he's not supposed to. 

The cold is still a shock; bites aggressively into his skin and stings in his eyes, burns in his nose whenever he breathes in. 

There is no sun visible, not even a pale white shape hidden behind grey clouds. There are yellow lights in the houses he drives by— families waking up and starting to unwrap Christmas presents. There is no one else awake, not one other lonely soul shivering in the bitter weather. 

He's all alone. Fingers bluish pale around the steering wheel, head and heart thrumming with concern and restlessness when he passes by street in which the boy lives. 

The boy who didn't come yesterday for Christmas Eve as he promised. The boy he allowed to go with his father who covers him in bruises every time Auston is away on the platform. 

The boy who is in every single thought and dream and in his heart like no one else before. 

__

But he doesn't turn into that street, doesn't walk up the driveway and doesn't knock on the pale blue door with the wrinkled paint. 

He drives home to the little cottage where no window will be illuminated and no fairy lights hang from the ceiling. Where no one awaits him and no one cares for him.

The little cottage that isn't home anymore. 

__

The streets are clear even though he can see rocks of ice covering the beach and the cliffs from the snowstorm a couple of nights ago. It catches the low light of the early morning, sparkles like cruel diamonds. Like a promise for something better that will never come. Snow is piled up along the road, only the longest blades of dune grass cutting through it like yellow blades, the colour of the sky almost the same as the road. 

A landscape of greys and whites. 

Almost like the desert. 

And just as deadly. 

__

The red stands out of this colorless scenery and immediately catches his eyes like a signal fire, like a warning light. Speeds up his heartbeat and makes his throat clench tight. It makes him stop breathing while fear runs through his body with a piercing pain— as if someone stabbed him with a white-hot blade. 

(That's how his parents must have felt. When their bones broke and the tin walls of the car crushed their bodies.) 

His head throbs so hard, his hands and legs react on their own when he stops the car, hits the breaks so hard that he can hear a screeching noise. When he gets out and starts to run. 

Because he has seen this colour many times before and there is only one person who wears a sweater in that particular red. 

The person he has been trying to forget for the last two days. For the last couple of months. 

The person he couldn't forget. No matter what he tried. 

Auston stumbles through the hip-high snow, sinks in deep with every step when he breaks through the frozen surface but he doesn't even notice; neither the cold nor the pain in his knees and thighs, nor the wind biting his unprotected face and throat. Not even when he falls down and cuts his hands on the sharp crystals. He hurries forward, crawls almost… until he reaches the unconscious the body of the boy. 

He is barefoot and still in the clothes Auston has seen him the last time. But unlike that last time, there is no life in him: his skin is so pale that the snow around him looks dirty and dark, except for the lips that are so bluish-white that even Auston knows that he's probably closer to death than to life. 

How long has he been out here? Has he been here last night when Auston drove past him? Lying in the dark, helpless, trying to get to Auston?

How long can someone survive in temperatures this low? One night? Five hours? Less?

"God, no…" 

He can't be too late. _Can't_. 

The boy's clothes are soaked and frozen when Auston lifts him— brittle and stiff. His flesh is ice cold and lifeless when Auston presses him against his chest— so different than before. His eyes are closed and they are not even fluttering when Auston brushes his fingers over his cheeks.

"Please…" 

Shaking the body in his arms, while he <del>whispers</del> sobs the boy's name. Begs for a reaction, for any sign of life. Doesn't know whom he's begging for, just knows that he would give everything, would give everything to find a trace of breathing when he brings his fingers to the boy's mouth and nose, willing his own blood to stop pulsing so loud in his eyes so that he can focus better. Thinks he's imagining it at first when he feels the ghost of warmth hitting the calloused skin of his fingertips. 

Leans down to bring his face close, to feel it against the softer flesh of his lips. 

_'Pleasepleaseplease.'_

To press his ear against the boy's chest. To hear the meek and slow sound of a beating heart. Too slow, way too slow— one heartbeat for every three breaths he takes. 

But it's enough. 

It's enough. 

__

Auston doesn't know how he manages to carry the boy back to his car and drape him onto the back seat. The only thing that counts is that he does. He's trembling then; from the cold and the exertion but he doesn't waste any time to take off his parka, his scarf and his sweater and starts wrapping all the fabrics around the boy. Flinches when he touches the glacial skin of the bare feet. 

Talks frantically about how everything is going to be fine. How he would take the boy home and warm him up. How he would make a fire in the oven and then rub the life back into him. How he wouldn't allow anything bad to happen. _Again_. 

Then he turns up the heat as high as possible and drives to the cottage as fast as possible. 

It’s difficult to maneuver the boy’s body out of the car and into the house, to be quick and not hitting any door frames, placing him onto the couch and piling layers and layers of blankets over him. His hands are trembling but finally he manages to light a fire in the oven, and stokes up enough logs of wood that the iron casket is almost glowing and emanating so much heat that he can feel it the second he enters the living room— laden with more blankets that he found in his bedroom. 

The boy is still unconscious when he kneels next to him and brushes back the wet strands of hair from his face, when he searches for the weak wisp of breath. Nothing has changed about his condition and Auston knows that he has to get him out of his soaked clothes since they will only keep the warmth away from his body. 

It feels wrong. Forbidden. Violating the boy's trust in him. 

At least, it's to save the boy's life; at least, it's for a good reason. Auston tells himself as he starts to unbutton the jeans. He doesn't have another choice. 

And he would never lay a finger on him if the boy wouldn't allow it. No matter how often he has thought about the milky legs and the silky skin, no matter how often he has dreamed of the lanky body curled around his own at night. Of the bright eyes and sweet smiles and the easy affection the boy always showered him with. 

It's not easy to peel the pants down and remove them; to handle the unconscious body and move him around to wind the arms out of the sleeves and pull the sweater over his head. The boy may be slim and light, but he is still tall with long limbs and more than once Auston is so frustrated that he considers using the scissors and just cut through the fabric. But it's the boy's favorite sweater. 

In the end he's sweaty and out of breath but at least he managed to take off everything but the boy's boxers. 

Through all this there was no reaction of the boy at all and the only thing that has changed slightly is the temperature of his cheeks and lips when Auston finally lays down next to him and pulls the blankets over them. The rest of the boy's body is as cold as before— almost shockingly cold still. But he ignores the goosebumps and curls himself around the boy, hopes his heat will help the boy to recover. Presses his face into the crook of the boy's neck, picks up his consoling whispers from before. 

He falls asleep like this, tired from the night before and exhausted from concern and the rush of adrenaline. From the relief of breathing in the familiar scent, the knowledge of having done everything he can. 

__

_'You came… you found me.'_

_'I'm so sorry. I should've listened to you. Should've never gone with him.'_

_'But you found me… you found me.'_

__

It's those words that pull Auston back into wakefulness, back into reality. They seep into his dream like the tentative touches that dance over his cheek and chin and eyelids until he's fully awake; suddenly and awfully aware of everything that happened. 

It feels so normal to wake up like this. 

(Because it is.) 

With the boy’s wandering fingers on his skin and his body warm and subtle pressed against Auston's. 

(They have woken up so often like this.) 

Warm. Hot almost. A low chuckle in his ears. 

For a few minutes he just lies there— doesn't move. 

Because for a few minutes it's so tempting to pretend this is reality: waking up with the boy in his arms, warm and safe and happy. And everything that has happened since he left the woman's apartment could be the dream. Maybe he never spotted the red sweater, maybe he never found the boy unconscious and close to death. Maybe the boy never even left with his father and stayed with Auston. 

Because for a few minutes he never wants to open his eyes. 

But he _has_ to… So he does. Opens his eyes and finds the blue ones already on him, finds the little tug in the corner of his mouth that could become a smile if he weren't in too much pain and too exhausted. If he didn't flinch the very next second or bite his lips with a surprised hiss. If the hand on Auston's face didn't tremble and fall down onto the cushion between them; leaving his cheek cold and _touchless_. 

"You're awake." He sounds regretful. "I didn't mean to wake you up." 

"You didn't." 

(Technically it's a lie, because he did. But Auston can't mind.) 

This time the boy really smiles; suppresses the pain and just smiles through it— or doesn't even realize that he's still in physical pain because he looks so relieved and happy. As if the last two days didn't happen. As if Auston didn't find him on the edge of dying just this morning. 

"I totally did, don't lie." 

"Maybe." 

It's easy to return the smile; easy to settle into the mood of the golden moment that is this morning. 

_As if he wants to pretend, too._

Auston doesn't want to burst this bubble. 

But there is blood on the cushion where the boy's head has been and Auston has carried his unconscious body into the cottage a few hours ago. He needs to know. Needs to make sure. Even if it makes him crazy. 

"How are you?" 

For the split of a second Auston can see the shadow that darkens the boy's gaze like a nightmare, like a cloud covering the horizon. Gone within the blink of an eye, yet he is sure that it has been _there_: pain, fear, the horror of memories. 

Gets the proof that it has been there when the boy pushes the blankets away and wriggles his way from the spot between Auston and the backrest of the couch, pulling one of the blankets with him and wrapping it around himself as he walks over to the window that looks out to the ocean. Auston feels colder even though he knows it's impossible because the room is toasty warm and the heat under the covers is almost suffocating. 

"I'm good… I— I'm sorry that I scared you. But I really am. Good, I mean." He bites his bottom lip, hands twitching nervously to tug the blanket higher, eyes flickering between the ocean and Auston. 

"I've told you before: the cold doesn't bother me."

"You were more dead than alive when I've found you. It's a miracle that you didn't die of hypothermia, but we should go to the emergency and make sure—"

"No! No… we can't. Please, trust me. If you bring me to a hospital I’ll die." 

Auston has never heard the boy raising his voice like this, not even two days ago. Has never seen him pleading like this when he comes over and sinks to his knees in front of the couch, when he reaches for Auston's hand and grabs it, presses his cheek against the back of it. A string of whispers so fast that it's barely possible to make sense of the words.

"Nohospitalpleaseplease… theywillhurtmeandtortureme."

Auston doesn't understand, doesn't know what he's talking about, but there is no way that he would think about doing anything that strikes this much panic inside the boy. He tries to withdraw his hand, only to cause the boy to hold onto it even tighter. 

"I won't, okay. I promise." 

It's not the first time that he notices a servile behavior from the boy— he has witnessed it on many occasions since the boy started working for him (the way he kept his head down, or cleaned after him, served him dinner and helped him out of his coat) but it has gotten less and less in the last couple of months that Auston almost forgot about it. 

It's like a slap into his face. 

It's _wrong_. So very _wrong_ that his head starts to spin, that his stomach twists and revolts. 

And his first reaction is to push the boy away and get up, but this idea is even more sickening than seeing the boy on his knees in front of him. 

So he slides from the cushions and onto the floor, brings them almost eye to eye. It's enough to make the boy look up at him in surprise, to evoke a gasp and then a small smile. To get him to drop Auston's hand and reach around him, enough to embrace him with a soft hug, pressing his ear against Auston's chest. 

He doesn't know how long they sit like this; the boy in his lap and curled around him, bundled in blankets, without words. Auston's legs get numb from the awkward position, but he doesn't dare to move, doesn't want to startle the boy, whose breath is warm against his skin and whose hair tickles his throat. 

Just when he thinks that the boy has fallen asleep again he starts to shift, rearranges his position slightly as if he knew that Auston was uncomfortable. 

"I should've listened to you… should've never gone with him. But I underestimated him… or overestimated myself, I don't know. Because it had gotten worse over the last few months. Before I started to work for you it was just… occasional beatings— nothing I wasn't used to, nothing that I couldn't take. He's always had this violent streak so I learned to not provoke him more than necessary. The first time he hit me was when I talked to one of the girls in the neighborhood; he said that it was selfish of me to have fun instead of making him dinner after he worked the whole day to provide for me. I was twelve then and still new to the town, happy to make friends. He slapped me thrice in the face with the back of his hand and I would never repeat that mistake again."

Auston holds his breath, tries to stay as calm as possible, to not interrupt the story, but with every sentence it has gotten harder and harder and now his jaw is painfully tight from clenching it and his knuckles are white from curling his hands into fists and it costs every single thread of willpower to not drive to the town and beat that man to death. 

"I know that I'm not smart or anything, too stupid to go to high school or work a regular job, but at least I figured out quickly what he wanted from me and as long as I played by his rules I was remotely safe. I kept the house clean, cooked, did laundry. Took on small jobs to contribute, tried not to be late or object him. Tried to smile and do everything he asked from me." 

"The girl panties and shifts?" It's a shot in the dark, yet Auston knows he's right when he feels the boy go rigid in his arms. 

"And the hair. He said it suits me better, brought me clasps from his former wife's jewel box, made me wear her sweaters and jeans, sometimes her dresses, too. Said he couldn't afford to buy clothes for me twice a year because I was growing so fast. I didn't mind, it was just fabric. And by the time I turned sixteen I've gotten better figuring out what he wanted, and at hiding what I didn't want him to see. And he got better at hiding the bruises on my body, because no matter how good I got, sometimes he was unpredictable. It could be anything… me forgetting his beer or burning dinner, smiling at someone too long or not smiling at him."

"Why didn't you run away?"

"Oh, I did. When I was fourteen, and again a year later. I never got farther than the next town until someone caught me and brought me back. The first time he locked me up for a week and hit me so hard that I couldn't sit. The second time he choked me and tied me up in his room. I tried it again when I was seventeen. Saved some of the money I earned working for Christina and the other neighbors so that I could buy a train ticket in St. Johns. I slipped him sleeping pills and cut my hair before I took the greyhound. By the time I got to St. Johns I felt so weak and sick that I couldn't even walk anymore— every step was pure pain and every breath I took was fire. I returned to him and thought he would kill me this time. But he didn't. He was out of his mind, crying and mindless with worrying that he held me the whole night and promised that he would never harm me again. Of course, I knew better than believing him, because the next day he realized that I came back on my own, that I was bound to him, that I could never leave him. That he held all the power over me."

Auston doesn't understand, doesn't even try to understand anymore.

Asks why the boy never went to the police, not when his body is a living physical proof that he's not safe with his father, that he's badly abused in the cruelest way. 

But the boy just shakes his head; whispers of hair brushing over his chest, over the bare skin on his throat. Then he sits up and meets Auston's gaze for the first time since what feels like hours. 

He smiles, sad and indulgent as if Auston told him a joke that isn't really funny. As if Auston said something silly. 

"I couldn’t. They wouldn't believe me, or if they did they would lock me away. Just like they would if I went to the hospital. I’d be safe from him, yeah, but I’d still be a prisoner. At least with him, I'm free to go to the ocean or to see you. But mostly I can't because he’d make me suffer more than you could ever imagine. Even more than I ever could." Again a head shake and a smile. This time only sad. 

"And I can imagine a lot of painful things." 

__

The boy is taking a shower while Auston prepares a late lunch. He made him keep the door open so that he could hear if he passed out because no matter what he said about being okay, Auston could see he was clearly not; was still exhausted and weak when he stood up, legs trembling and face white as chalk from the few steps to the kitchen counter. 

He is distracted, focused more on the sounds in the bathroom than anything else and almost hurts himself with the knife as he cuts the meat and peels potatoes. Focused more on the images displayed in his head where he pictures the man's body being stabbed with that knife. Pictures his hands beating the man until he passed out. Pictures his hands covered in blood. 

He is so distracted that he doesn't hear the boy coming back into the living room until he stands beside him and takes the knife away from him and gathers his hands into his own; starts kissing every knuckle with cool lips— chasing away his fantasies as if he can read Auston's mind. 

"Don't." Another kiss. "Please don't. It's not worth it. _He's_ not worth it."

__

But that's where the boy is wrong. 

Because _he_ is worth it. Everything.

__

After their meal the boy wants to go to the beach and Auston isn't even surprised. Would never think about denying him his wish, only makes sure that he stays close to him, hand always on the small of his back.

A gesture that is unnecessary because the boy clings to him, tangles his arm around Auston's and never leaves his side while they walk along the shoreline. 

Auston has known that the ocean means everything to the boy, that he thrives when he can feel the sand underneath his toes, smell the salt in the air and taste the wind of endless freedom that he can see on the horizon. That something magical happens that Auston can't comprehend whenever he is close enough for the waves to touch him. 

But today he can barely breathe as he watches the transformation on the boy’s face and in his body with every minute they spend there. How the weakness vanishes and the tired smile becomes a bright laugh; how the exhaustion in his eyes becomes pure relief and joy. 

Maybe he would have been jealous, or felt neglected— because nothing, no one, and especially not him could ever compare with the love the boy feels for the sea, but when the boy refuses to let go of his hand and pulls Auston with him into the breakers he is finally able to forget about the images of revenge; all the various ways he wanted to make the man pay. 

It's an icy cold day and the idea of getting into the ocean should be ridiculous when every exhale settles in the strands of hair around their faces like a cloud of white and every inhale feels like shards of glass in their noses. 

Still, he follows the boy, takes off his shoes and jacket and jumps over frozen seaweed and rocks of ice, runs along the shoreline until they are both coughing and their throats are sore. 

The boy never lets go of his hand, not even when Auston slips back into his shoes. 

His lashes are covered with frost, his cheeks are pink and his lips warm when raises to his tippy toes and presses them to Auston's for the first time. 

__

It was the first time. 

Not the only time. 

But it was the kiss that Auston couldn't forget about. The one that he replayed over and over in his head when he closed his eyes at night. When he counted his days in the concrete confinement of his cell. 

__

He never wished that the kisses and embraces were enough to distract him. 

Never regretted that he left the boy alone later after he had fallen asleep on the couch; clothed in Auston's sweater, legs bare. Cheeks still flustered and lips red and swollen from kissing. 

Never regretted that he took his car and drove to the house in which the man lived. 

He only regretted that he lied to the boy who never asked for anything from him except that he should stay. 

__

It almost feels like a dream: the dark road in the white headlights of his car, the glittering snow on the asphalt, the wind bending the grass on the dunes. 

He passes illuminated houses, porches sparkling with fairy lights, families heading to the Christmas Mass. 

But the only thing he can think about are the words the boy has told him before, curled around Auston after making him promise that wouldn't do anything stupid. The unwillingness, the hopelessness, the forsakenness in his voice when he finally gave in and answered the questions Auston couldn't stop asking. 

_'There’s a chest in the closet of his bedroom. It's made of iron and it's always locked. He wears the key on a chain around his neck and he never ever takes this chain off, not even while he showers. I tried to steal it more than once. The first time he woke up and beat me before he locked me up in the house for weeks. The second time I waited until he fell asleep in front of the tv, but when I opened the chest he caught me and whipped me with the chain until I passed out. That night I thought I’d die.'_

It almost feels like a dream: the scrunching of the snow under his feet in the front yard, the creaking of the porch, the numb sound of his knock on the wooden door. 

_‘I didn't die that night, but I never got the blood out of the carpet, no matter how hard I tried—The third time I sneaked sleeping pills into his drink again and even managed to open the chest. The iron burned my fingertips but it was nothing compared to the shock when I discovered that he wrapped it in a blanket of tar.'_

It feels like a dream but Auston knows that it isn't. It's real. 

He knows it because no dream could ever be as satisfying and thrilling as the moment when the man opens the door and recognizes him. When he pushes him back into the hallway and starts to punch him. When he hears bones break under his hands and smells the iron of the blood that splatters onto his jacket and his face. When he tastes the fear of death the man emanates as he leans over him and looks him into the eyes. 

The only thing stopping him from smashing his skull on the stone tile is the voice of the boy inside his head. 

_'This skin that I'm wearing right now is not my real skin, it's just the skin I use to appear human. I can live inside this body for as long as I want because it's nothing like a coat to me. And like a coat, he can rip it and slash it and almost destroy it. But just like a coat isn't enough to make you a human being this skin isn't enough for me. I need my _real_ skin. I can't escape him without it. I can't be free. He stole it when I was distracted and he uses it to bind me. The farther I get away from it the weaker I become. It's the only thing that I need, the only thing of me that he can really hurt.'_

This isn't about killing the man. It's about the boy. 

It's about the promise he has already broken. 

So he releases the man, only rips the chain from his throat and grabs the small key. Enjoys the utter defeat and despair in the man's eyes. The knowledge of what he's about to lose. 

Everything is exactly like the boy described: the room, the carpet with the faint bloodstain, the closet and the iron chest. His hands are shaking when he fumbles the key into the lock, the bloody fingerprints look gross and wrong and maybe that is the only reason that he wipes them away with the sleeves of a checkered shirt he pulls from a hanger, but it would save his life later. 

Everything is exactly like the boy described: the click of the lock, the weight of the lid, the stench of oily tar when he opens it. The soft shimmer of the skin he finds inside after unwrapping the heavy blanket. He didn't switch on the light but he can still marvel the luxurious texture, the delicate dark dots on the silvery grey. 

Everything is exactly like the boy described. 

No matter how unreal it has sounded. No matter how much Auston has hoped that the boy had just made up a story to get rid of his abusive father. No matter how much Auston has prayed that the boy had just gone crazy after everything he endured. 

(Because then Auston could close the lid, leave the room and the house. He could return to the cottage and pack his belongings. He could take the boy and drive somewhere no one would ever find them.)

But it is _real_. 

And Auston clears his fingers from the sticky black liquid with the same shirt he used to wipe away his fingerprints and then takes the sealskin and wraps it in his jacket; careful that nothing of the tar stains the velvet surface. He doesn't waste any more time, only makes sure that he doesn't leave any proves behind. 

The man is still unconscious when he passes him in the hallway, barely breathing, already heavily bruised and bleeding from his nose and mouth. 

For two seconds he contemplates calling the ambulance, but then he remembers the boy's words and voice while he told him how he spent two days on his knees trying to clean the carpet in the bedroom from his own blood; how he fell asleep countless times to the man sitting beside his bed and watching him; how he woke up from hot hands wandering all over his body and the foul taste of the man's breath inside his mouth. 

It almost feels like a dream: the air cold enough to pierce his lungs while he walks to his truck. The snowflakes falling softly and thickly as he drives through the quiet town, passes the golden windows of the church. The darkness murky and heavy when he finally arrives at the cottage. 

It feels better than any dream when he crouches down beside the sleeping body of the boy and brushes the wisps of hair from his forehead, follows the arch of his eyebrows and the curve of his nose to the dip above his lips. Watches him shiver and then turn around so that Auston can admire the soft roundness of his shoulders and the cut of his collarbone, the creamy smoothness of his skin where the sweater has slipped down. But he doesn't wake up and Auston is glad about it. 

The fire has almost burned down but it's warm enough in the living room while he undresses and throws the ruined shirt into the oven. He knows that the boy will find out what he did, but he rather doesn't want him to see the extent of his violence. Then he steps into the shower and watches the streaks of red until the water is clear and all he can smell is the fresh and clean scent of soap. His knuckles are burst, bruised, and he can still feel the man's bones breaking from his punches. 

It is almost as satisfying as the tentative and questioning touch when the boy comes to him and embraces him from behind. When he presses his face between Auston's shoulder blades and kisses his way upwards until he reaches the hairline in Auston's neck. 

He doesn't say anything, doesn't remind Auston of his promise; only reaches for some ointment and applies it carefully to his hand before he takes it and leads him upstairs to the bedroom. 

No one says anything. 

The boy makes him lay down and then arranges himself around Auston under the blankets; chest pressed against his back, leg wound over his thigh— mouth and nose never leaving Auston's skin, licking, tasting and inhaling him. 

__

Auston wakes up at the brink of dawn. Wakes up again to the quiet whispers of the boy, wakes up again with his arms around him. 

It would be the last time, he knows. 

They both do. 

Maybe this is the reason the boy is reluctant to move, the reason there are tear stains on his cheeks and that he looks like he hadn't slept at all. 

Auston smiles. 

"You have to go." 

"I don't want to." 

"The police will be here soon, I'm sure your father’s already called them." 

"It’s all your fault. Why did you have to go and… you _promised_ me." 

He sounds so hurt, so heartbroken that Auston almost regrets it for a moment. But then he shakes his head, shakes off all the tempting ideas, the beautiful fantasies that will never become reality; that never stood a chance of becoming reality. 

"Because you're unhappy. You don't belong here. You may not age in this form but you’d wither away. I'm… I’m not a good person, I'm selfish and weak but I can't stand the idea of you suffering more." 

"I'm not. Not all the time. I'm happy when I'm with you." 

The pain in the boy's voice is real. So real and devastating that Auston has to swallow. He knows that the boy really believes in the truth of his own words… that he really _is_ happy whenever he's with Auston. But he also knows that this would change, that he would learn to resent Auston the longer he stayed with him, that his soul would die— so slow that he wouldn't even notice it until it was too late. 

And Auston would rather kill himself than being the cause of the boy's unhappiness. 

So he leans forward and takes the boy's mouth, kisses him for the last time; brushes the tears from his cheeks and inhales deeply. Allows the boy to draw him in and roll them over so that he's on top of him. Soaks up the taste and scent of the boy. Learns the feeling of his limbs around him, the shape of his body, so that he can engrave it in his memory.

So that it's enough for all the days to come that he has to spend without him.

__

They don't speak after they have left the bedroom. 

It's not necessary and there is nothing that they can say anymore. Everything is said. Everything they could say now would diminish what happened, would tarnish the pictures they created. 

It's Auston who carries the bundle with the skin, still wrapped in his jacket, while they take the small path down to the beach. Today no one of them has eyes for the sunrise scenery unfolding around them, for the low hanging clouds that would bring more snow, for the waves that look like grey glass. The boy only has eyes for him, is even more reluctant to let go of him than the day before. 

It makes his heart beat faster, with feelings he has never known before: with overwhelming affection and tenderness and love. With the conviction and satisfaction that he did something utterly selfless and good for the first time in his life since he left his sisters.

That he maybe managed to wash his hands from the sins he committed. 

He's even sure of that when he drinks in the expression on the boy's face while he finally unfolds the layers of his jacket and reveals its content. When he hears the sigh of pure relief and sees the tears of happiness as the boy reaches out and touches the silver fur with his fingertips. So hesitant that it almost seems he's afraid to find out that it's not real. 

But it is real and if Auston has ever had any doubts that he did the right thing they melt like ice in the sun, vanish into thin air at this moment when the boy takes his hand and guides him to touch the shimmering skin. 

It's the most beautiful thing he has ever touched: cool like water, soft like summer rain and rich like silk and velvet and he knows that will never feel anything like this ever again— never wants to feel anything else except for the boy's human body in his arms. 

Auston doesn't realize that he held his breath until the boy cups his face and makes him look up. 

In the pale light of the morning his eyes are light, the blue almost appearing grey like the sealskin, the pattern of the freckles on his nose and cheeks identical to the dots underneath his fingers. He is smiling; this impossibly wide and bright thing that warms Auston's whole body. Radiating thankfulness and bliss that alights Auston's whole being, stuns him to nothingness so that he can only watch while the boy stands up and unfolds the skin like a blanket, scans it for any signs of destroying. 

But it's flawless, immaculate. A striking contrast to the boy's bruised human skin as he sheds the clothes that he's wearing. Clothes that were never his, clothes that have only ever been a confinement of his real being. That look like rugs compared to the precious texture of his real skin. 

(Auston would take them back to the cottage and then to prison— would never wash them and inhale their scent until the stopped smelling of the boy.) 

In the pale light of the morning, his naked body is white and slender and stunning even covered with purple bruises. With windswept hair and sand stained shins his movements are graceful and careless and Auston couldn't take his eyes from him even if he wanted. Not when it's the last time that he's able to look at him, not when he's finally about to see his true self. 

In the pale light of the morning, he steps close to Auston and takes the skin from his hands, drops it to the ground without hesitation; swallows Auston's protests with his kisses that taste of salt— of the tears that still cling to his lashes. But he's also smiling as he presses himself against Auston's body, fingers buried in Auston's hair, eyes locked with Auston's. 

As if he feels exactly the same. As if he can't let go, doesn't want to part from him. 

It starts to snow again while they stand like this; thick and heavy flakes that settle on their hair and lashes and on Auston's clothes. That melt on their cheeks and noses and the boy's naked shoulders. That cover the beach and the dunes with a perfectly white blanket and makes them aware of all the time that has passed. 

If the boy had repeated his earlier words, asked again to leave everything behind and run away with him… Auston would have done it. He would have packed his few belongings, plundered his banking account and drove to a better place where no one could ever find them. 

But the boy doesn't ask again and only the tiniest part of him is disappointed about that. 

He's been running away for years— almost all of his grown up life. He's tired of it, and he's stronger now, he knows that he's ready to face his fears, to face his own thoughts and memories. 

And he knows that the boy would wither away, would suffer every day he wasn't able to see the ocean, would grief every minute he isn't really free. He would be happy with Auston, just like Auston would be happy with him. 

But it would be a shallow and vain happiness that would turn into sadness. 

Knowing this makes it easy to end the kiss and smile as he watches the boy pick up the sealskin. To take the outstretched hand and wade into the waves until the icy water makes it impossible for him to move. To open his arms for another silent embrace and the boy's fingers that sweep over his eyes until he closes them. For a last kiss that tastes exactly like their first and that he would banish from his memories. 

He keeps his eyes closed until the boy is gone. 

Until everything that is left of him is the bundle of clothes on the beach and the taste on Auston's lips. The image whenever he closes his eyes. 

__

[](https://imgur.com/GiUR5Dg)

**Author's Note:**

> Mitch’s foster father keeps him bound to his house and forbids him to go to school, he sends him to work for other people as a housekeeper and expects him to clean their home and kind of serve him. Whenever Mitch misbehaves - when he’s unpunctual, doesn’t finish his tasks right or in time, when he talks to neighbors or forgets something important - he hits him or locks him up in his room.  
Mitch describes these happenings in a detailed form at the end of the story. It doesn’t contain rape, mostly because I wanted to leave it up to the reader’s fantasy. 
> 
> Mitch isn’t underage in this story but there is an age difference between him and Auston, as I made Auston older. Mitch is about 19 in this story and Auston around 24. So at the beginning when Mitch’s father started to mistreat him he was underage. 
> 
> After Mitch told him what his father did, Auston decides to help him and he confronts Mitch’s father. During this, he beats him up badly and leaves him unconscious. 
> 
> I’m on [ **tumblr** ](https://miss-malheur.tumblr.com/) and always up to talk about those two idiots.


End file.
